CUT ON THE BIAS HAS MOVED!

Cut on the bias has moved. Please change your bookmarks, links, etc., to this:


bias.blogfodder.net


And thanks for stopping by.

I'VE BEEN DISCOVERED

I'VE BEEN DISCOVERED: I just got this email from Fred First:

Do you have an alias? Is there REALLY a bizarro-world? Are you http://bias.blogfodder.net/ too? Will one blog live while the other is left on an iceberg with the Polar bears?

The answer is "yes".

A few weeks ago, Dodd Harris of Ipse Dixit asked me if I'd like to move off Blogger and onto a server in his part of the world, Louisville, KY. Since I've become discontented with Blogger, I love Dodd's blog and he promised 24/7 support (didn't read the fine print either, didya, Dodd?), I thought it was a great idea. Plus, since I can't live in Kentucky, at least my blog can. So Dodd constructed my template in Moveable Type, patiently taught me how to use it, and today we made the transition. As of tomorrow, all posts will be on my new server, so please change your links to:

bias.blogfodder.net

This move now makes me a member of the H O S T I L E family, hosted by the redoubtable Mark, known to be a genius by his friends. At least they say that, if they expect to stay on his server! I'm proud to be there, and sometime soon you'll see links on my page to all the H O S T I L E gang. That has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? Could I now call my blogging "hostility"?

It's going to take a few days for me to settle into the new blog, so please bear with me if things look a little funky at first. And sometime in the next little while, I'll be doing a redesign (keeping in mind Meryl's words of wisdom), but that won't affect the link, just the look. For now, my other blogs - The Saturday Ramble, inside my mind, and writings - will remain on Blogger, as will my archives.

And thank you all for reading my work. It makes every day a pleasure to see that people come here, and to read what you say in my comments and in email.

NOTE TO SELF: Do not depend on driving directions from two passengers who do not drive, speak with strong Caribbean accents and tend to get excitable in New Jersey traffic. In this way lies madness.

ANOTHER "NICE GUY" KILLS BECAUSE OF BULLYING: Providence, RI, newspaper production worker Carlos Pacheco killed two coworkers and then himself yesterday; his family claims he was endlessly "chided" and "taunted", and co-workers claim the management of the company causes such stress that not only did it cause Pacheco to kill three people including himself, but also caused another employee to commit suicide three years ago.

Management praised Pacheco:

''He was one of the nicest kids I've met,'' [Plant supervisor Bob Varin] said. ''He was a great worker. We never had a problem with him."

Anthony Minucelli, a former co-worker, agreed:

Pacheco, he said, ''didn't bother anybody. It shocked me that it was him.''

The family's characterization of "chiding" and "taunting" doesn't seem to mesh with the "work tension" identified by other workers; perhaps Pacheco personalized a generalized attitude on the part of management, or something else was going on. We'll be find out more, and probably will learn that Pacheco was a gun nut, and someone will conclude that if guns weren't so available, this wouldn't have happened because, after all, Pacheco was a nice guy. But regardless of what is said, the final truth is this: He could have quit the job. He could have made many other choices, none of which involved killing others. He wasn't shooting in physical self-defense. The blame for these deaths rests squarely on his shoulders, no matter what the provocations, no matter what the means.

And Bob Varin is one lucky man.

MARSHMALLOW TRAP:

Todd Hardwick, a licensed alligator trapper and the owner of the Pesky Critters nuisance wildlife control company, has a permit from the state to trap and kill "nuisance alligators" like these.

He has come armed with several big, shiny hooks of the kind normally used to catch sharks, hundreds of yards of the parachute cord he uses as fishing line, a bang stick loaded with a hollow-point .357 bullet, one large plastic bag of decomposing pig lungs and seven bags of marshmallows.

"They like marshmallows," he said.

It is one of the tests that the 39-year-old Mr. Hardwick uses to determine if an alligator has lost its fear of humans. He flings a handful into the water. If an alligator eats them, it is almost certain that it has been fed by fishermen or campers.

"If he swims away, he lives," said Mr. Hardwick...

Apparently snack foods are a no-no in the animal world too.

[Link via reader Dave Menke - his insomnia is your gain of reading material.]

IN THE "EXAMPLES OF WHAT WE SHOULD BE" DEPARTMENT, I give you the French, those perennial critics of America:

Minorities Struggling to Join The Political Elite in France
Equality Still Only an Idea as Voters Choose Members of Parliament

I vote we send Rep. Cynthia McKinney over there to help them integrate. They should work well together, don't you think?

[Link from reader Dave Menke.]

I'LL HAVE THOSE POTATOES FRIED, PLEASE: Jacob Sullum at Reason Online comments with appropriate disgust and amazement on the current efforts to chase after obesity in this country with the same lawyers who went after Big Tobacco. Summarizing his amused horror will not do the piece justice, so I won't. I do want to comment on this:

The Independent added that many Americans can't get healthy food even if they want it. "Once you head inland from the coasts, away from the big population centers and college towns," it reported, "the very notion of unprocessed fresh food" vanishes. "It's a straightforward question of availability, giving the lie to food industry claims that consumers can exercise free choice in deciding what to put in their mouths."

Sullum responds to this well, but didn't make the point that immediately came to my mind, as someone who grew up about as far as you can get from the "big population centers" and still have an average of one person per square mile or more. You see, the further you get away from those "big populations centers", the more likely you are to be close to another American phenomenon - "farmers". "Farmers" are people who produce the "unprocessed fresh food" that the Independent apparently thinks magically regenerates in those big city supermarkets, kind of like a Lil Abner Dogpatch ham (no matter how much you use, there's always more left). "Farmers" even make "unprocessed fresh food" available more cheaply than supermarkets, at roadside stands and farmers' markets.

It's true that when I was growing up far from any coast in that vast wasteland void of big population centers, we rarely bought vegetables at the supermarket, especially in the summer. What we did do was go to the garden, liberate whatever looked good, and eat it the same day for dinner. It was routine for my dad to put a pot of water on the stove, then go to the garden for corn; by the time he was done shucking it, the water was boiling and ready to receive it. Many times dinner was sans meat - we'd have corn, broccoli, cole slaw, new potatoes, sliced tomatoes and onions, all from our garden, and cornbread made from cornmeal ground from our corn. And - this will really horrify those who think food spontaneously appears, packaged and pasteurized - we also occasionally killed and dressed chickens for dinner that same day .

The problem wasn't the availability of fresh, unprocessed food. When there was a problem, it was how it was fixed - fried. Fried chicken, fried potatoes, fried corn (you haven't lived 'til you've had it), and - in some families, not mine - fried tomatoes. All served with cornbread and butter. This was relatively okay fare for a hardworking farmer going dawn to dusk, but when the work style changed the eating style didn't, so you had a disconnect between calories eaten and expended. It wasn't - and isn't - availability at issue. It's choice of food, choice of preparation style, choice of time spent preparing, choice of quantity and choice of calories expended (i.e. exercise). Suddenly, it begins to look like choice, doesn't it?

I don't deny that sometimes obesity is involuntary, but that's usually a medical condition, not a corporate plot. And there are legitimate emotional issues and physical addictions (for want of a better word) associated with food that can make it difficult to control weight, as well as cultural habits of eating and the tendency to make celebrations and social occasions food-centric. Also, limiting a behavior is always more difficult than just giving it up entirely - the "can't eat just one" syndrome. Nonetheless, it is insanity, this whole chasing-after-obesity movement with lawsuits and pious pronouncements about protecting people from evil corporations leading them insensate to the trough. It is an invasion of privacy and a further undermining of the concept of personal responsibility. And just, well, stupid.

YOURISH TRULY: A bloggish milestone - I spent a lovely afternoon and early evening with Meryl Yourish in marginally-suburban New Jersey, the first time I've met a fellow blogger. If it weren't for the fact that she beat me to the only copy of Shirley Jackson's Raising Demons in the used book store, I would call it an unmitigated pleasure. She's as articulate and straightforward in person as she is in her blog, and in between the shop crawl and the chocolate sundaes, we did our very best to solve the world's problems.

Meryl's knowledge of Israel and the history of the Jewish people helped me understand more about the situation in the Middle East. It reinforced my sense that there is just no negotiating with the Palestinians - as a group - anymore. I think Arafat and the Palestinians are collectively operating under a delusion about their own actions, and no logical or normal way of handling the situation is truly an option. To negotiate is to give them the impression that their opponents are weak, and the suicide bombings are working; to retaliate in piecemeal, "we're warning you!" kinds of ways only feeds their sense of ill-use, stoking the coals of their hateful obsession rather than putting out the fire for good.

Today four more Israelis died, while the West coddles a killer. When does it stop?

ARE WE SURPRISED? Chas Rich at Sardonic Views identifies the credulous use of a press release from an environmentalist group by CNN, and notes that other groups wouldn't get such an easy pass into their news cycle. Link via the Prof, who thinks it's not unusual. I concur, and point out that this is another way that media bias manifests itself.

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT YET, make the time for Will Warren's latest Unremitting Verse.

BUSTED: Tony Woodlief nails people who insist on all lower case for their names or use only one name:

Bell Hooks. Bell Hooks. That's capital B, capital H. What's that, Bell? You want to be called "bell hooks," sans capitals? Too bad. I'm a capitalist, this is English, and you are Bell by God Hooks. So get over yourself.

It's hilarious.

(We won't discuss that, as you can see by my tagline, he's busting me too. I do use appropriate capitals in the non-bloggish world.)

RONALD REAGAN - A HERO IN HISTORY.

TANGLED DEFINITIONS: This week an Ohio man was given two life sentences for beating to death his wife, who was five months pregnant at the time. One of the sentences was for his wife, the other for their unborn child. Yet the unborn child would have been about 20 weeks along, which is in terms of viability a gray area for doctors:

Viability is presumed to exist after 27 weeks of gestation (assuming an otherwise healthy fetus) and is presumed not to exist prior to 20 weeks... The time between 20 and 27 weeks is a "gray zone" in which some fetuses may be viable and others are not.

While I've not seen much about the case, the fetus's viability would have been the crux of that part of the murder case, given that, in reference to abortions:

In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court [wrote]..."the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact."

However, even the Supremes refused to set a time frame for viability:

..."the soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 or 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity may be somehow enhanced in the future."

It's a dilemma, whether the death of an unborn child should be considered murder. Viability is a factor, certainly, as is intent. I would be inclined, for instance, to visit greater punishment on a Manson-like evisceration of a mother for the purpose of removing the unborn child and killing it too. Or for a person who shoots a woman in the stomach for the purpose of killing the fetus - which is unlikely to happen at an early stage, anyway. And the later the pregnancy, the more inclined I am to count the death of the fetus as murder. But while I'm hesitant to say the caused-death of an early stage fetus is the same as murdering a infant, or an adult, at the same time I'm generally against abortion. So should I consider viability of the fetus as an issue when a pregnant woman is deliberately or negligently killed, for purposes of charging the killer with the death of the fetus, when I don't give that a lot of value in my decision about whether induced abortion is acceptable?

Conversely, it poses the opposite problem for someone who is pro-choice: it raises the issue of whether the child was wanted - for a pro-choice advocate, the issue at the center of his/her pro-choice decision is not primarily the viability of the fetus but rather the mother's ability to choose whether she wants to have the child. Thus, if the child was unwanted, the other-induced abortion, albeit involuntary on the part of the mother, would not be in the same order as the same action in a case where the child was wanted, or so it would seem to me, if the argument is to stay consistent. That is to say, the value of the fetus (or mass of fetal tissue, as it is sometimes referred to) is contingent on the value the mother places on it, ultimately, rather than on any objective standard. Therefore a defense against a charge of murdering the fetus could be that the mother herself had planned to get an abortion. On the other hand, the choice was taken out of the hands of the mother, which would be a violation but not, I think, on the same level as murder if she had already chosen abortion. In either instance - involuntary or voluntary abortion - "the mass of fetal tissue" loses any chance of viability, so how could you justify terming one murder and one not?

I want to say that wherever we land, the application needs to be consistent - whatever the current law is on abortions, that same standard should hold with murder charges where the death of a fetus was caused through the negligence or criminal activity of another party. But issues of viability and choice remain as question marks. It's not an idle questioning either - laws are but the will of the people codified despite the rather attenuated connection to the people's will that some laws represent.

It's the kind of dilemma that permeates our criminal justice system, which only the most blindered would term "consistent" or, often, even "fair". And it's the kind of dialogue we need to have in this country, rather than mindless applications of new laws without consideration of the broader consequences or implications. I lean toward a graduated scale of harm based on the viability of the fetus, in this instance, but whatever the decision is, it should be internally consistent with the rest of the legal code and in line with the broader policies of society - to the extent that we can pinpoint what those are with any consistency either - within the framework of the Constitution.

ALL YOU NEED IS PAUL? Victorino Matus at The Weekly Standard reveals himself to be a Beatles purist. Kind of. Well, mostly.

EMBLEMATIC WORDS: Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard says what I think about Triple Crown contender War Emblem and his Saudi owner.

THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS PROTECTS ITS READERS - I'm not saying I agree (or disagree) with their choice, but interesting that they made it in this day and age.

...we said we would take the ads if they made them a little more conservative, or more informative and less promotional. At that time, they were not interested in revising their ads and that's understandable.

Should a newspaper make this kind of judgment? And if so, should it be made for the reason given as most likely in the article?

Link via Romenesko.

NY TIMES DOES A DEWEY:

Producers of the 2002 Tony-winning best play [The Goat] were upset by a color ad mistakenly running in the paper's June 9 "Arts and Leisure" section proclaiming that "Metamorphoses" had won the top drama prize last Sunday...

"We are still looking into the matter," said Times spokesman Toby Usnik, while producers for "Metamorphoses" declined comment until they got a fuller explanation from the Times...

"The Goat," Edward Albee's play about the limits of love, and "Metamorphoses," a water-drenched reinterpretation of the myths of Ovid, were in hot contention for the best-play Tony, which inevitably boosts a show's box-office receipts.

UPDATE: And a reverse Dewey, in a stunning expansion of the Times' status as the best newspaper in the world.

NOTHING BUT THUGS: Martin Burnham is dead after a year in captivity with the Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group in the Philippines showing their thuggish ways. Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap, also a captive, died in the apparent effort to rescue the hostages. Gracia Burnham was shot while escaping, but remains alive.

The NY Times article says:

Abu Sayyaf began as a radical Islamic group more than a decade ago.

At that time, its mission was to establish a Muslim state in the southern Philippines. The founding members received military training in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet Union, and later in Libya. The group is believed to have had ties to Al Qaeda, but Filipino officials said those links faded in the mid-1990's.

The group later became more interested in kidnap-for-ransom.

It's nice to see the NY Times "get it" about this group - they're just a bunch of criminals, not some altruists fighting a holy war against oppression and McDonald's - but the Times doesn't make that connection with Al Qaeda and some governments in the Middle East and elsewhere. There aren't noble "root causes" that give birth to such behavior; it's not about even a marginal effort to make things better in their own countries, to build a society where people are aided in achieving the basics of the human condition. It's about power and money for the leaders and their minions. While the United States can't go around dismantling power-hungry, greedy governments all over the world for humanitarian reasons, when that desire for power gives birth to a resentment of and attacks against us - or support for those attacks - it's time to take them down.

SO YOU THINK YOU'RE COOL? Meryl Yourish has advice for bloggish web design.

DIARY OF A FRIENDSHIP: The Saturday Ramble is up.

GOTTA LOVE A GOOD SEGUE: Media Minded comes through again with a nice evisceration of an email from the writer of an article MM dismembered previously, whom I suspect of masochism (the writer, not MM) given the fact that he came back for more abuse. The issue is Drudge's reporting of David Brock's mental collapse while writing his sad little screed last year, but the pleasure in the piece is MM's sure-footed trouncing. And the last sentence is a masterful (albeit likely unintentional) segue into his next post, about the brouhaha over swearing in newsrooms. Reading this one will give you a good idea as to why liberal media bias is so pervasive AND so difficult to get your average journalist to see. After all, the next cubicle is also plastered with Greenpeace bumper stickers, isn't it?

KRUGMAN AND ELVIS: Tom Maguire has the details over at The Minute Man.

WHAT, PRAY TELL, IS SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE? Newton's Kumquat (NK henceforth) is pretty annoyed:

OK, this really ticks me off:

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — The Ten Commandments have been removed from Hamilton County court buildings, ending an episode that may cost the government as much as $80,000...

I wonder what the $80,000 spent on this travesty could have purchased if it were put toward improving schools or building affordable housing...

NK has a funny interlude between these sections dealing with a not-very-bright support statement for the ten commandments from a proponent, but I'll let you discover that for yourself. I've been ambivalent about the whole 10-commandments-posting-in-public thing, not for religious reasons but for definitional reasons. As a religious issue, I think it's the wrong hill to die on and only sets up Christians as objects of fun (cf. NK). But the purging of religion from public life and public spaces, as seen in efforts to remove murals or plaques or statues with religious connotations from publicly-owned properties, is a real concern. I don't think the founding fathers meant for religion to disappear from public life in a torrent of agnosticism; I think they meant for a vibrant religious community to be encouraged by the absence of governmental pressure to be one thing or another by dent of state monies being used to support it, as with the Church of England. To me, "vibrant religious community" is a broad term that includes people who are philosophically agnostic or atheistic - after a point, those positions are religions too, with moral implications and certainly evangelistic fervor. (And every deist needs at least once to have his or her faith baptized in the fire of an intense debate with a truly committed atheist, on the same principle that pressurized water is used to find holes in pipe systems.) Removing all evidence of religiousity from our public spaces and dismissing it as unimportant in public debate is to deny our history and in a very real way disenfranchise religionists. I'm not done with this internal dialogue yet, so I can't offer a solution. But I do think the energies of religionists would be better focused on other issues. (For those interested in the church-state issue, this is a great site for more information.)

Meanwhile, back to NK: S/he also has a good discussion about the dearth of public transportation in fly-over country, to which I responded in comments and s/he in turn responded to me in a post. Check it out.

NOTE: I've recently identified a woman as a man on my blog, and a man as a woman, in one case from a blog where the blogger's name wasn't given on the front page and the other where the name, to me, was indeterminate so with a 50/50 shot I called it and missed. Now I'm retiring from the "guess the gender" games and identifying anyone who's gender is not self-identified as "s/he".

UPDATE: Newton's Kumquat has confirmed that "he" is the appropriate pronoun for references to NK. However, he prefers other details to remain mysterious for privacy purposes, which is fine with me. I tussled with that myself - there's lots of things I could tell you about where I work and what I do that I think are pertinent, but since I'm fond of paying bills, eating and the like, I've refrained since my name is on the blog. OTOH, I get to claim my work as my own publically. Life, as always, is about choices.

SICK OF TELEMARKETERS? Here's a good script to follow in getting rid of them for a long long time, based on the provisions of the 1991 Telephone Consumers Protection Act.

Found via Dive Into Mark.

INCOMPETENCE PROMOTED: I can't believe Bush wants to make Homeland Security a cabinet position. The concept of Tom Ridge, and whomever succeeds him, needing more authority to accomplish the job is a logical one. But we've not seen anything out of Ridge's HS to give us confidence that this isn't just another layer of bureaucracy. The problem, as I see it, is that there is no way in the current system to give sufficient authority to do the job. That would be one director - Tom Ridge - with the ability to make heads roll, to streamline functions and to bring all the agencies into some kind of centralized intelligence flow where each has its own area of expertise but where some unit answerable only to Ridge has access to all the information and can do macro analysis across agencies.

The mix of civil service and political appointees in government has built to a mass of incompetence that is monolithic in its resistence to change. Having worked in government for eight years, and having extensive experience with public education (although not so much as an employee), I have developed a distaste for civil service and tenure that is equal to my distaste for unions - while I accept that in some respects they are necessary, given the political games that are endemic to all those contexts, the form they have evolved into is actively dangerous to our system of government and to the people of our country. In the case of federal law enforcement and justice agencies, there has to be a way to investigate what went wrong, in an across-the-board, I-don't-care-if-it-was-Barbara-Bush-or-Jimmy-Carter-who-caused-the-problem way, kick some people out of their positions AND out of government, then restructure the agencies so they work more cleanly, honestly and, within their own community of law enforcement, more openly. But instead, we have another layer of high salaries puffing around without accomplishing anything, while the agencies themselves protect their own people and turf at the expense of the safety of the American people.

It's shameful, disgusting, pathetic. And making Tom Ridge Grand High Muckety Muck of Colorizing Warnings isn't going to fix it.

WE'RE SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, but the brains behind this site will be down today for maintenance and possible retooling, as an upgrade seems beyond the hope of the staff and the capabilities of the brain. We recommend the following alternative sources of enlightenment:

JUNKYARDBLOG - One of my first links, and still one of my favorite bloggers, Bryan Preston has a very interesting view on nuclear war, expressed in this discussion about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Having spent time in Japan while in the military, and happily married to his Japanese bride, Bryan has a unique perspective. It's a two-parter, so start with the linked post and scroll to the top for the second part.

PATIO PUNDIT - Anyone with a patio like this really deserves no more out of life, certainly no links from me, but Martin Devon is stacking up the good posts lately so I'll succumb to the imperative of taste. He moves from fine art (where's the El Greco, Martin? the Monet? the DALI??), to the startling image of Michael Jackson whining about mistreatment from his record label, and finally winding up commenting on the bloggish soccer/football tussle. Martin, I know how to resolve that - ban all sports but college basketball, then summarily name the University of Kentucky Wildcats Best Team of the New AND Old Millenium.

THE LAST PAGE - If any of you haven't been checking her blog obsessively, what's the matter with you?

LIFE AS A VOLE - Funny, a good writer, and insightful, all at the barely-attained age of 17. Her latest post on love contains a passage I wish I'd written, but which certainly applies to me:

Before I say anything else, I want to make it clear that I in no way know what I'm doing. I have my goals and ideals but if at any point I sound like I know exactly how to execute them please don't believe me.

On that note, have a nice day, and write me any suggestions you have for the retooling. I'm considering caramel Cordovan leather, to match my hair, but the concept of a casual, poofy-chaired beach cottage style is strangely compelling.

UPDATE: My idea of a man: Tony Woodlief. God love him and his offspring.

Don't stop until every terrorist who targets innocents is surrounded by 72 virgins



and may they all look like the backside of a diarrhetic camel.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BABY, GOT YOU ON MY MIND:

Sixteen people - 13 of them Israeli soldiers - were killed in northern Israel Wednesday morning as an Islamic Jihad homicide bomber blew up the car he was driving alongside a packed commuter bus...

In Damascus, Syria, another Islamic Jihad leader, Ramadan Shalah, said the bombing was meant to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem - areas the Palestinians claim for a future state.

I saw this story last night as I was going to bed late; then it was only a banner across the screen. I felt sick, and just crawled into bed without blogging it. I knew plenty would be said by the time I got back to the computer, and it was. Blog, blog, blog. And then I found out it was a 1967 Six Day War anniversary surprise. Nice of you to remember us, Arafat, but you really shouldn't have.

I don't know the intricacies of Sharon and his politics, but I can't find any glimmer of righteousness in this action, except Israel's righteous wrath. I hope it rains down on the Palestinian perpetrators like fire and brimstone on the plains of Sodom, consuming them with the sulfurous furies of a well-deserved hell.

Sharon, say this:




Happy anniversary, baby. Here's our present for you.

BEAUTIFUL:

The pasture grasses just beyond the maples are in full flower and their pollen smells like midnight bread baking; the creek sends wafts of spearmint, wet mud and turbulence. So familiar, almost painful, these olfactory memories of summers past, from calm childhood Alabama nights...

The photo at the top of the page looks almost exactly like the field near my childhood home, complete with old, unpainted wood building. This looks familiar too. This is what I'm more used to seeing now.

BUT DOES SHE CLEAN UP WELL? Dan at Happy Fun Pundit thinks the US should seriously consider Mark Steyn's suggestion that we annex Alberta, that bastion of oil. However, the deal comes with strings. Well, dates. Or at least, an attempt to get dates.

THE WASHINGTON CORNETT AND SACKBUTT ENSEMBLE:

That was NOT a full-length photo! And I am NOT a member of this group.

(However, it is intriguing to think of saying at a party, "I'm into sackbuts.")

DEBUNKING UPDATE: I mentioned below the Bush Is Awful list of "failures" from his first year; Ben has posted his second set of 10 debunkings, and I've received an email from David Sprintzen, to whom the list is often wrongly attributed, explaining the provenance. Summary: Someone sent it to him, he sent it to a bunch of people, the original author was on the original email but somewhere got lost in the forwarding.

CONTINUING THE OUTDOORS THEME, I am a lowly insect.

UPDATE: In a move that will shock my evolutionarily-inclined compadres, I have shamelessly moved up the food chain to flappy bird. Meanwhile, on a slightly different scale, I apparently Will Link For Beer. Who knew a guy who doesn't even know where I live would uncover that Bud in the pantry behind the bag of onions? I'm a teetotaler, remember, it's JUST FOR ONION RINGS. Go away.

THIS IS ONE OF THE FUNNIEST THINGS I've seen in quite a while, in a dark, dark kind of way. Maybe because I've been there, done that and been done to. Not for the married amongst us, unless you just have this nostalgia thing going about it. If you do, you're a bit sick, you know. And the site is old, so if you've seen it before, sorry. I am, as usual, late to the party, so move along with your recriminations and leave me to my wide-eyed wonder.

This was a cogent, emotional, and deeply moving post. I don't want to see any more like it.

Link via Ipse Dixit.

RESEARCH NOTE - MEDIA FRAMING: I've got a pile of research materials to read for my core area proposal (the to-be-rewritten one, if you remember), and since that's going to be a big part of my reading for a while you're going to have the pleasure of quotes from and comments on what I'm reading. I'm going to preface each with the "Research Note" heading, though, so you'll know to move along if your eyes glaze over at this kind of thing.

Tonight I read a study on media framing in coverage of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, where an Hasidic Jewish man was killed by rioters. Earlier, as a result of an accident with another car that wasn't his fault, a car driven by Yosef Lifsh, a Lubavitch Jew, struck and killed a young black boy and injured a young girl. Due in part to the long-standing tensions between the Caribbean-American community of the children and the Lubavitch sect, the situation quickly developed into a riot and, later that day, in author Carol B. Conaway's words, "a group of 10 to 15 young male blacks surrounded and assaulted Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old Hasidic man. He was stabbed four times...and died three hours after identifying [Lemrick] Nelson as his assailant".

Conaway, an African American Jew, describes how the riot began:

An ugly rumor that the Hatzolah ambulance crew [run by the Lubavitch Jews] had ignored the critically injured children started to circulate in the crowd. It fed the longstanding belief in the Caribbean-American and African-American communities that Hatzoloh Service catered exclusively to the Jewish community. They and nearby Lubavitchers argued fiercely; some of the younger blacks in the crowd began hurling rocks and bottles at the Lubavitchers...(t)he crowds soon grew too large to be controlled by the police. Caribbean- and African-American youths continued their rampage through the neighborhood...

In 1993, the Girgenti Commission classified the Crown Heights disturbances as bias-related. They found an explicit element of bias in the many marches, demonstrations, and criminal activities that occurred during the four days of disturbances. For example, the Commission cites the time one afternoon when marchers went through Crown Heights shouting "Death to Jews"... As the young males of African descent surrounded Yankel Rosenbaum [who was Hasidic but not a Lubavitcher], they shouted, "Kill the Jew!" and "There's a Jew, get the Jew."

The article discussed how the tension was between cultures - a Caribbean-American community and a tightly-knit, closed Hasidic Jewish sect - yet the NY Times and the NY Post both covered it as a black/white racial conflict even though the quotes they themselves used from those involved were explicitly about culture, most specifically anti-Semitic comments from the Caribbean residents. The NY Post soon shifted to an anti-Semitic frame for its coverage, while the NY Times continued in its racial frame for two years, again despite a preponderance of anti-Semitic quotes in its pages, until the Girgenti Commission Report was released.

A media frame is the context the journalists place a story in; often they have to assimilate and interpret complex situations quickly, and present them clearly and understandably to the public. That's easier when there's already a larger, society-wide "story" to plug the event into - thus, a "frame" to organize the information to make it more understandable. In this instance, the NY Times initially picked the "racial story" to form a backdrop for this situation, given its various markers, which is to some degree understandable at first but less so as evidence piled up that a different "story" was more appropriate. After the markers began to show that there was a strong component of anti-Semitism, the NY Times was showing framing bias by continuing to use the "racial story" anyway. The reason why that's important is made clear in this quote from the article:

This inability to conceive of persons of African descent as having interaction more complex than racial conflicts with people whose skin color is white is symptomatic of a larger problem in American society itself - one that fails to define and understand individuals and communities of color as persons who have a complete range of humanity in their being, both for good and for evil. Until this singular perspective and dialectic of race changes in journalism and admits these complexities, this failure in understanding will persist.

The article is "Crown Heights: Politics and Press Coverage of the Race War That Wasn't", by Carol B. Conaway in Polity, Fall 1999, and is derived from Conaway's earlier research paper.

UPDATE: My earlier post mistakenly identified the driver as the one killed; the article correctly outlined the events, and the post has been substantially rewritten to better reflect the Crown Heights situation itself as portrayed in the article. Thanks to Meryl Yourish, who pointed out the mistake in comments, and then asked:

Does your paper have any follow-through? The two communities got together after the riot to build bridges, bridges that exist today. They admitted there were problems...on both sides. Community leaders stepped up to the plate and got each group to start learning that the others were human, too.

The answer is no - the article does not go into the ways the communities learned to live together after the riots, focusing rather on how the genesis of the conflict emerged from misunderstandings based on cultural and religious differences, not race. Conaway says,

The Lubavitchers formed an insular self-sufficient community here as they had done in Eastern Europe [having immigrated to the US to escape the holocaust], and made no group effort to befriend, or in most cases, even acknowledge, their Caribbean-American neighbors...many members of the Caribbean population interpreted these actions as arrogance and aloofness, and began to adopt negative stereotypes of the Lubavitchers...

The focus of the article is the media framing. The research paper on which the article (which I couldn't find online) is based is here (PDF file).

I WAS IN THE 2% - which isn't surprising. Take the test, see how you did, then go see what Den Beste had to say about it.

And if you just can't stand it, you can write me to find out what my answer was.

UPDATE: Well, wouldn't you know that Andrew Sullivan linked this test just hours after I did, so the poor blogger has now exceeded his bandwidth. Try again later if you get that deadly message.

CONTINUING THE OUTDOORS THEME, I am a lowly insect.

MORE EVOLUTION STUFF: Martin Devon and Max Power continue their exchange, with interesting results. Check it out. I'll be back in the fray likely this weekend.

FOR TODAY ONLY, while voting is going on, I'm posting an old photo of your blogger, which shows her girl-next-door charm and outdoorsy nature. We won't discuss how old the photo is, and no one is allowed to ask my dad the hunter/gatherer type just what he thinks of my outdoorsy claims (hint: he thinks enjoying videos of The Smoky Mountains doesn't count.)

UPDATE: Well, it's not today anymore, it's tomorrow, so as promised the photo is gone. You'll have to wait for the next time I come out of my shell to see another.

INCREASE LEGAL SMOKING AGE TO 21? The Dodd at Ipse Dixit finds out that California has proposed it, and isn't very happy. Don't miss the comments section, where he and his readers (including me) debate the points. Is it a question of health vs. rights? Is fairness an issue? Worth some of your time.

TERRORIST SPEAKS AT LONDON UNIVERSITY - Theodore Dalrymple of City Journal reports:

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, so perhaps it is petty to complain that the presence of the Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled in Britain, to address a meeting of students at London University's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies, undermines Britain's claim of iron commitment to the anti-terrorist cause.

Just who is Leila Khaled?

One of the world's most famous female terrorists is Leila Khaled, who worked with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Born in Haifa in 1944, and sent to Lebanon as a refugee four years later, Miss Khaled, at age 25, hijacked a TWA flight from Rome to Athens in 1969. The plane was blown up, but no one was killed.

A picture of her fashion model-like face peering out of a keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress, and her slim fingers wrapped around a machine gun gave her worldwide notoriety as a "deadly beauty."

One year later, she struck again, hijacking an El Al flight in Amsterdam. The hijackers were overpowered and the plane safely landed at Heathrow Airport near London. Miss Khaled spent less than a month in prison before being released by British authorities in an exchange for Western hostages held by the Palestinians. Since then she has lived in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

And what did she have to say?

To do her justice, she is not a turncoat to her cause. She told the meeting at SOAS (packed, of course, as you'd expect) that there were no suicide bombers, only freedom fighters. The fact that freedom is not a conspicuous aspect of the political culture of the part of the world from which she comes seems to have escaped her.

Dalrymple's conclusion is straightforward, and sad:

Khaled's presence in Britain illustrates by analogy the truth of Lenin's famous dictum: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

A free society with a (somewhat) free-market economy is difficult to police effectively, but inviting in those who have tried to kill us is just insanity. How many of you doubt that some groups would be willing to pay Osama Bin Laden for a speech in the US if, 30 years hence, he is still alive? A few probably would today.

AND NOW, FROM YOUR FRIENDLY LOCAL MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATION:

The newest trend in marketing is big corporations posing as small companies in a bid to recast themselves as friendlier and more customer-caring.

WATCHING THE WATCHERS II - It's a good (bad?) week for nailing media inaccuracy and spin. Nat Hentoff of The Village Voice has an excellent takedown of media inaccuracies in coverage of slavery in the Sudan. Hentoff begins by establishing his bona fides to fact-check other journalists:

For more than five years, I have been writing on -- and interviewing witnesses to -- chattel slavery in Sudan…

I have interviewed redeemed slaves living here; have reports from black Sudanese bishops; and have checked with American journalists who witnessed slave redemptions, as well as with Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., who also have been in Sudan.

He then takes down Nicholas Kristoff, featured below in this very blog:

In his April 23 column in The New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof wrote, "Unfortunately, there is evidence that many of these redemptions are the result of trickery, with false slave traders selling make-believe slaves many times over." That's all Kristof wrote on this point. He presented no evidence. If I were still teaching journalism classes, I would use this as the denotative definition of irresponsible reporting. As of this writing, the Times has declined to print letters specifically challenging Kristof's unsubstantiated charge.

And then he goes after WaPo's Karl Vick:

A much more egregious illustration of reckless journalism was a Page One story in the Feb. 26 issue of The Washington Post by Karl Vick, a correspondent in Nairobi, Kenya. The headline: "Ripping Off Slave 'Redeemers.'" In the story, Vick charged that "buying the freedom of Sudanese slaves" abounds in corruption, and "in some cases ... the slaves were ... people gathered locally and instructed to pretend they were returning from bondage." Redeemers and observers who do not understand the local language were tricked, according to Vick.

John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) -- the organizer of the redemptions, whose reports over the years I have checked and never found inaccurate -- said that Vick himself did not witness any slave redemptions, did not interview any liberated slaves, and, "after many months of research, failed to find, identify, and produce a single false slave out of the 60,000-plus slaves redeemed by [CSI]." Eibner also said -- regarding allegations that complicit translators did not tell "fake" slaves the specifics of what Western observers were actually asking -- Dateline NBC and CBS News, when each reported from Sudan, had their translations checked for accuracy.

The rest of the article is mainly a discussion and refutation of these incidences, and an example of one columnist who was first snookered by WaPo and then found out the truth through research, resulting in the ethically correct response - a column explaining the truth, and a public apology for getting it wrong. That kind of attitude is what begins to restore faith in journalism.

Read the whole column for a look at how journalists get it wrong, and their newspapers often apparently don't care.

UDPATE: NRO has another article on this misrepresentation in the media, by a very reputable source. Thanks to my favorite Media Minder for tracking it down - we're playing tag team today.

HINDSIGHT SPIN DETECTOR: Mark Levine dissects Cynthia Rowley's memo and unpacks his version of the FBI's pre-9/11 behavior, in NRO.

OH, THIS SHOULD BE FUN: Nicholas Kristof, the columnist everyone loves to hate, has visited a gun show and isn't very impressed:

...the Michigan Gun & Knife Show, held here over the weekend, was the place to buy any kind of pistol and lots more: huge .50-caliber semiautomatic rifles, fuse wire, Confederate flags and 75-round clips for an AK-47 in case I wanted to pursue moose that lacked the sense to flee if I missed the first 74 times.

..Gun show bumper stickers are big on machismo: "I just got a gun for my wife — It's the best trade I ever made" and "Warning: Driver only carries $20 worth of ammunition."

...These gun shows are incredibly common — there are 4,500 of them a year in the United States — and constitute one loophole in the war on terrorism that the Bush administration refuses to plug...

Of course this isn't primarily an issue of international terrorism, but rather an urgent public health crisis: guns kill one American every 20 minutes. Even since Sept. 10, six times as many Americans have died from guns as from international terrorism...

President Bush prides himself on his willingness to do whatever it takes to fight terrorism — lock up zillions of Arab men, introduce military tribunals, invade Afghanistan and Iraq. If terrorists were buying weapons at these kinds of gun shows in small foreign countries, we might try bombing them. So what about closing America's own gun show loophole?

I anticipate that this will create a stir in the blogosphere, and expect later today to see NRO and possibly The Weekly Standard to pile on. Go get 'em, I say! Meanwhile, go see what real women think about gun control (link from Brent at The Ville), and check back here this afternoon for new links to those who've chosen to shed righteous truth on Kristof's column.

UPDATE OF THE COMMENTS (given in the order and with the time I found them): 9:26 a.m. Glenn is unimpressed. 10 p.m. He remains unimpressed and his readers do too. Jeff Goldstein busts on Kristoff too, using a great slam-nick - "Jolly Old Slant Nick". (I noticed Goldstein's piece in mid-afternoon but was so swamped I didn't get it posted then.)

EVEN INNOCENT PLEASURES TURN DARK - Because I like nifty interactive maps, I posted a link to a computer-generated, real-time tracking map of LAX's air traffic. Even though you can click on each plane to learn its altitude and a few other things, to my untrained eye it seemed like nothing more than a really cool online stop. Reader John Simutis keyed off it to make all sorts of connections, sent to me in the posted email below in its entirety except for a few modifications such as adding a word "here" for a link instead of giving the actual link in the text. The photo is from one of the links he provided, and I added links to the Strelas and Tasers. While I don't know enough about the topic to evaluate his concerns, it sounds likely enough to make me itchy.

Great interactive map. It's just what any self-respecting terrorist would appreciate in order to make best use of his/her shiny new MANPADS rocket (MAN Portable Air Defense System) - see here for the Russian set (SA 7, 14, 16, 18), here for the most popular US version. Saab/Bofors has an improved version here - 5000 meter altitude and range greater than 8 km.




Occasionally I have seen mention of Coast Guard chasing away boaters from the end of some coastal airport runway; I do not hear anything at all about even watching the landward boundaries of the airport facilities or the takeoff/approach paths. The minimum area to cover is a set of about 10-mile-wide corridors aligned with the runways, as well as beneath the 'orbit' paths where the planes waiting permission to land may be lower than about 16,000 feet.

To take just LAX as an example, this gives the precise alignment of each runway; this tells us how high traffic must be at particular points, depending on time of day, and of course all air traffic control traffic is unencrypted, with frequencies published for anyone with a scanner to eavesdrop. 'Outer Markers' for the runways at LAX are about 6 miles from the ends of the runways, so there is an area of around 60 square miles of prime 'kill-zone' for just the final approach.

A pair of binoculars and a passing command of English, a radio scanner, an internet connection and a map puts one easily in the 'best' places, with access to escape routes. This is a longer treatment of the threat of MANPADS use.

The Washington Times says "The U.S. government has alerted airlines and law enforcement agencies that new intelligence indicates that Islamic terrorists have smuggled shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles into the United States.", which seems to validate the previous article.

Still feel like flying? Shall we lobby for missile-threat radar and Infrared decoys aboard commercial airliners? Maybe the Tasers will shoot down the Strelas...

Of course the US law enforcement and military agencies know this, but that isn't the comfort it once was.

THIS IS MIGHTY COOL. I wonder which if any have guns on board? Link from DaleyNews.

MORE ON PILOTS WITH GUNS: Alley Writer Yack says, don't do it.

NOT THAT BUSH DOESN'T DESERVE A GOOD SMACK: Below I hammered a supposed "media watch" editor and writer for her high moral anti-Bush tone alongside an apparently "lifted", certainly unoriginal and unattributed, list of Bush sins. While I think her lifted list is bunk, this article shows that Bush has plenty of sins to repent for without the left going gaga searching for them.

I'm getting disheartened. You may have noticed that I've not posted as many smackdowns and political items lately; part of that is just a time issue (it's more complex to do a good analysis than link about and write what I think about music), but a lot of it is that I'm disgusted with Bush and his minions and it's hard for me to get a good irritation going against a liberal who's poking at him, no matter how unfairly, when I want to yell at him myself. There's no center there, there's only fogginess with occasional glimpses of what could be showing through.

I'm disgusted, actually, with the Republican party in general. I'm registered Republican, but I am not a party person - I'm a conservative, registered as the closest thing to my position. I nearly had to beg, for months, to get political signs from the NJ Republicans last year; the year before, I volunteered several times to help Bush, online and through people I knew locally to be associated with the party, and I never did get a call or even a stupid bumper sticker. Perhaps if I was a political operative on a general basis, I would have had more luck, but it's people like me - not the Republicans-to-the-marrow types - who win elections. If I hadn't been so intent on making sure the Democrats didn't get in, I would have considered staying home. Both years. But I vote because I'm an American, every primary, every general election.

I might have thought that my being ignored had something to do with being in New Jersey, which is slipping back solidly into the "Democrats always win" column (perhaps because of just the kind of incompetence I noted above), but a friend of mine in Kentucky told me a similar story. She wanted to put a sign up on her farm, for Bush, in a county that could have gone either way. She called about getting one a month or so before the election - her usual practice, and also usually successful - only to be told that signs had to be reserved, and if she hadn't preordered one, she couldn't get one at all! Did a yard sign suddenly become a status symbol, a designer fashion, a trendy icon? What better way to dispel the impression that the Republicans are an elitist party than by getting snitty with people who want you to win.

I was very happy when Bush got into office and seemed to be doing so well. After 9/11, I was impressed with his follow-through and that of his people. Then Powell started to get soggy, and one by one the promises that lifted him into his presidency failed. I find it hard to listen to the news, to read the coverage of what he's doing, even sometimes to follow what is being said on the blogs. When Rush Limbaugh says, "What's left of the conservative agenda that has not been offered up to Democrats?", all that's left is for Ann Coulter to gain 100 pounds and sing like a canary.

I tried not to go with the "he's wobbling" crowd. I still think Bush can resusitate his presidency. But with a Republican party that appears, to me at any rate, to be arrogant and dismissive of its supporters, and a president with all the backbone of a sponge in a rainstorm, I'm wondering whether I should plan a vacation for election day 2004.

IN HIS OWN INIMITABLE BLUESY FASHION, Dodd at Ipse Dixit introduces his new design today. I love the logo. Very cool.

IN FINE NEW GEARS, but with sand still in his craw, Tony Woodlief unveils his inspired, updated blog design. Check it out - as fine as the new design is, the content is better still.

WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS? Ben "Yin" Thornton is debunking, point by point, a list which has been going around since last summer that purportedly lists many "accomplishments" of G W Bush's presidency, all of them considered negative by those who do not like his presidency. I'm sure some other bloggers dealt with it before, as it's been around a while and was also prominent in Michael Moore's book, Stupid White Men. It's attributed to Dr. David Sprintzen, but according to Spinsanity's article on Moore's book, Sprintzen is not the author. (I called Sprintzen at his office to find out whether he is indeed the author, or if not if he knows who is. There was no answer, so I emailed him at his university office at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University. I'll let you know if he writes back.)

Ben (or is that j erolson?) does a fine job on the first 10 points, and promises to finish out the more then 75 item list in the coming days. What I found additionally interesting was just who posted the list, and what context each site gave. I did a quick Google search, and found a lot of references, so if you want to do more research yourself it's easy. But I did pull out a number of links, here, here, here, here and here; you'll notice little if any context at the various sites, which is especially interesting after seeing Ben's debunking. The Red Pepper version was posted in March 2002 in the UK, so it's still moving outward.

The very best site, though, was Chicago Media Watch, which, as you can imagine, is supposed to keep an eye on the Chicago media to make sure they're truthful and walking the straight and narrow. From their site:

Chicago Media Watch aims to ensure that this region's media remains open, honest and responsive to the needs of its people.

We are devoted to critical analysis of the corporate commercial media in the Chicago area and beyond.

The article with "the list" is in their most recent newsletter issue, Spring 2002, and is written by the president of CMW, Liane Casten, about whom they say:

Liane Casten is an award-winning writer and president of Chicago Media Watch.

So this is apparently their star writer, advocate and media watchdog. Let's see how she does.

First, the headline sets the tone:

A Year of Shame

And just in case you missed the point, the teaser gives it to you straight:

In George W. Bush's first year in office, he has done little to serve the people and protect the resources we all depend on. On the contrary, he has grabbed the reigns of power as if his vested interests and spoilers depended upon it. And the media has only helped him along.

Casten nails the "corporate media", by which she apparently means any professional media organization owned by someone who wants to make money, for their support of Bush, saying they "have pledged to give the American people only the President's and the corporate side of the story." (I wonder who took notes at that meeting? Did she get copied on the minutes?) She then trashes TV pundits with their "poll-and-ratings-driven bootlicking", and finishes up by pitying the writers of letters to the editor praising Bush, saying,

There is a reason for such laudatory exclamations: the public is simply not aware of what this man is really doing to the country and to the world – thanks to a servile media.

She builds to a steaming rage, quoting this and that no doubt unbiased source, culminating in this:

Politically speaking, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network are the best thing that ever happened to the presidency of George W. Bush. The expatriate Saudi millionaire made President Bush what he is today - a remarkably popular chief executive who is opportunistically transforming the Sept. 11 terror attacks into a political mandate for pursuing strategic right-wing goals.

Then what does she do but launch into another quote of the Spinsanity-debunked, non-Sprintzen, poorly-researched-by-Moore list, which is largely indistinguishable from what you'll find on other sites. But it's not attributed! Not even, incorrectly, to Sprintzen, not to Moore, who's book has been out for a while, not to any website or printed text. As far as the average reader knows, she developed it herself. That Liane, the award winning writer! She's a workaholic - just look at that list! Musta taken her forever to put it together! Here is her segue:

So while the public is seduced by Bush's words - "sustain and extend" the spirit of citizenship and service that has been engendered in the wake of Sept. 11 and "lead the world toward values that will bring lasting peace" - let's look at what this man and his well-connected cabinet is doing away from public scrutiny.

Environment

Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million.

Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources.

And the list goes on and on and on. Notice the second item - If you go back to Ben's page to compare, you will see the exact same words on that list, only there it is number 4. I checked the first 10 items of her list against the one from the Montgomery County Democratic Party website, apparently updated yesterday, which attributes the list to Sprintzen. While her entries were ordered differently, they were all also on the Montgomery County list, the only other difference being some editing for clarity. Apparently, Casten thinks that cleaning up and rearranging the order of a list somehow makes it her original work.

I'm not quite sure whether to call this pathetic, ironic, amusing or just lying. There is, I suppose, some vastly remote chance that the list is her original work, since I've not tracked the source, but the article's presence the Spring 2002 issue of her newsletter makes that seem unlikely. Certainly, given that much of the wording remains unchanged, it's unlikely that she's tracked down each item to make sure it was accurate; Ben's debunking shows that at the very least the material is misleading and out of context. And that makes her closing words, in the light of her standard bearing as a watchdog of media, all the more amazing:

In the absence of a vigorous media, the public needs to spread the truth. Given the media role as an apologetic lapdog for a man who is rapidly undermining our Constitution and our future as a democratic nation, we must alert everyone we know.

As E.L. Doctorow said: "Corporations that pit themselves against the manifest needs of the American people according to the issues that arise take turns as enemies of the people."

Who is servile to their ideology here? And just who do you think is an enemy of the people?

UPDATE: I received an email response from David Sprintzen today, which I'm pasting below in its entirety, except for his contact information. If you want that, he's on the Web:

Thank you for your note -- I did not compile, but only distributed info, and can no longer locate its author. I received it by email from a friend, but can't trace its origin. There has been no update, but one correction (the We The People program has been funded) and a few additions. Since this list has been circulating for many months with only that one mistake reported, I feel confident we can trust the accuracy of the rest of the list. I would love to see a report on the nerxt six months, but cannot do it myself. The original did have documentation, that has been lost in distribution.

David Sprintzen, Secretary
Long Island Progressive Coalition
Citizen Action of New York

OH, YEAH, THIS MAKES ME HAPPY. What's next, SCUD missiles on Half.com?

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO POST this morning, but Blogger is being difficult and I have to leave for work. Will post later as I can.

MAKING THE CUT: Thanks to CG Hill, I've been included on a rather...interesting list. Competitive as I am, my instinct is to campaign, but I think I'll adopt the cool, aloof mode, the "you wish you knew" attitude. I have my advocates, and could possibly post testimonials, but why take away all the mystery?

At any rate, it appears to me that the fix is in.

(And, CG, I think the latter group is beyond caring, and the former hasn't yet conveyed his view.)

UPDATE: Go here to vote.

MUSIC IS A PHYSICAL THING, sometimes, the best times, when you hear it. The instruments weave their chords through your mind, your heart expands to hold it until it seems your chest can't contain it. Most of my favorite music also include vocals, and close harmonies rising through instrumentals or ringing clearly through an a cappella void often move me to tears even when the song is not meant that way. The beauty hurts, and I resent that I can't somehow dissolve into the music and become a part of it. I imagine ballet as the closest human thing to physical music, but still the dancers are tethered by their bodies. In the right mood, with the lights off and the music turned up high, it almost happens. Almost. Never completely.

Silence can become its own music, when the mood and the place is right, and sometimes silence is the backdrop needed to give human sounds their deepest meaning. Other sounds, like the sound of crowds cheering at a high school ball game, evoke emotions from camaraderie to anger. But music is the thread that sews our lives together, memories, joys, sorrows, pleasures, while taking the here and now to a better place.

I can't imagine what life would be like without music as available as it is to us now - stereos at home and in the car, portable CD players, cassette tapes and, if you're still driving that vintage 70s Camaro, an 8-track tape. Millions of songs move over the Internet every day. Almost any music ever recorded professionally (and much that was not) can be had if you're willing to look.

I started young with music; piano lessons from 2nd through 7th grades, clarinet in band in 8th through 12th, a year of voice (but don't get excited - I did a few scales and breathing exercises but nothing that would make Juilliard do more than sniff. And instrumentally I was never more than adequate, if that). But singing has always been my first love, likely always will be, despite a voice without a large range. I have an excellent ear, though, and a friend once told me that no matter where she went with her voice, I was right there with her, in harmony. And harmony in voice, in any music, is what rests deepest in my heart. Where I attend church, we sing a cappella, no choirs, and often I'm the only tenor - high tenor at that. I sometimes get goosebumps when the parts come together.

All these thoughts went through my mind when I came across a challenge on Ipse Dixit's Five Songs page -

...pick five - and only five - songs you can never get tired of, no matter how many times you hear them.

The way I mean it, a song can only make this list if, after hearing it five times in a row, it would be just fine with me if it started right back up. If I heard it again the next day, and the day after that, I'd have to be able to still be fine with hearing it again the next day - and I have to have good reason to believe that I'll still feel that way about the song six months or a year from now.

What would I choose? There's too many. And he said, no more than five, and no more than one of any group. That's like saying, choose one of your children as the best. I love so many kinds of music - country, rock, folk, bagpipe, dulcimer, celtic, on and on. So I considered...for as long as I remember, singing with records, then tapes, then CDs, has been one of my greatest pleasures (albeit a trifle dangerous when I get really rocking while driving through West Virginia at 80 mph). So it would need to be songs I could sing with, that could have been the one on the stereo the time my uncle complained to my parents that he could hear my music a quarter mile away - and I was grounded from the stereo for a week. Something I loved that much, songs that I've already listened to in just that way. So here's my list, not high brow, not trendy, not fast because harmonies are harder then, but songs I've listened to so much that I can pretty much sing them without any notes or music. If someone gave me a CD with just these, I'd consider myself blessed. So here, Dodd, for your page:

My five songs:

1. Alone - Heart
2. Hold On, Hold Out - Jackson Browne
3. Don't close your eyes - Keith Whitley
4. Walkaway Joe - Trisha Yearwood with Don Henley
5. Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

FISHY, YET TOOTHSOME AND GOOD FOR YOU: Stefan Sharkansky, he of the Lake Tahoe trip from... well... Alaska, maybe, and other interesting and funny essays, has stepped into the blogging arena with his new Shark Blog. Welcome and have fun, Stefan! And we don't mind if you talk about your kids sometimes.

IN MY HOMETOWN - The NY Times yet again visits where I grew up:

MANCHESTER, Ky., May 30 - In one of the bloodiest election seasons in more than 50 years in these fabled Kentucky hills, Sheriff Edd Jordan of Clay County is watching his back.

"When you're a sheriff in eastern Kentucky, you watch your back every day," Mr. Jordan said...

Kentuckians who thought they had lived down the old feudin'-and-a-fussin' stereotype are finding some of the back-road hamlets of the eastern hills flirting anew with their own blood-soaked 19th-century history, when furious political differences were regularly tested by ambush.

This year, with five months to go before the general election, two candidates in sheriff's races have been killed. Other races have been punctuated with gunfire and fistfights, and there are widespread accusations of swapping votes for liquor, cash and even the addictive prescription pain-killer OxyContin...

"You know our crime rate has been falling for years, and this is probably one of the safest places in the country to live," Sheriff Jordan of Clay County said. "Unless you're a politician."

Yes, I grew up in Clay County, and went to high school in Manchester, the county seat. As I've mentioned before, I saw very little of the roughness, and I've always been annoyed by the characterization of eastern Kentucky as a place of violent and ignorant people. Well...sometimes you have to admit they're there, don't you? The majority of Kentuckians neither participate in nor condone that kind of behavior, but we can't deny that it happens. There is so much beauty and goodness there, and I regret that when the NY Times comes in to write about it (and this isn't the first time), it's always the bloody fights. That said, I think this is one of the better articles I've read, giving some perspective while detailing what really is a pretty awful situation.

Thanks to reader Dave Menke for the link.

AND THE BEAT GOES ON: Max Power says Martin Devon is wrong in his essay about evolution. Actually, he says I'm wrong too, but he starts with Martin and moves on to me. As a bonus, hang around and look at Max's discussion of the theory of gravity.

UPDATE: Ian the Dancing Bear piles on too. Hey, it's a free for all!

CAN YOU RESIST A BOOKSLUT? I can't. I just spent 30 min reading this really cool blog. Check it out.

WHAT HE SAID. And take their money away too.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE, here’s another entry in the evolution discussion. Actually, it was written way before today's exchange, and is a lovely essay that basically concludes that there's a lot we just don't know, and that's okay to say. It's by my favorite Patio Pundit, which probably was all that needed saying anyway. And I agree with a lot of what he says. Meanwhile, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, start here, go here and finish up back here (don't read the update until you've read the 'go here' post). Take time to read the comments in all those places, because they add much to the discussion.

I'm still absorbing, and thinking, and considering. I by no means think I have full knowledge in this arena, and one of the things I try to do in my life is explore not just what I believe but why I believe it. A friend of mine, an agnostic with a PhD in physics, when asked to provide me with the name of a book on evolution to update me on the 'state of the art', said, "Why would you want to read something that could shake your Biblical faith?" I was startled by the question - why wouldn't I? If it's that fragile, then I need to be testing it anyway. Something that's truth will never be disproven by more truth.

Sometime soon, I'll write a follow-up that addresses the points made by Moira, and Jeff, and others, as well as Rand's response. I'll let you know when that happens.

And, if you're interested, this is the book my PhD friend recommended (along with a high school biochemistry textbook for a glossary, and a trip to the Bronx Zoo to finish the job).

REFERRER LIST QUESTIONS:

1) Who in the UK would search for "straight arab male pornography"?
2) Are they looking for pornography featuring straight arab males? or pornography for straight arab males?
3) Would either involve an abaya? or an anti-aircraft missile?
4) How did my blog wind up at #13 on the search?
5) How did this site wind up at #11?

SINCE I CAN'T SLEEP ANYWAY, I'll have to go see Insomnia. Dodd at Ipse Dixit, no easy prey for the Hollywood crowd, was very impressed. Josh Claybourn, while less lengthy in his praise, nonetheless gave it a solid thumbs up. I read the book, but it's been a while, so I should still find the plot development entertaining. It remains to be seen if it's worth giving up my parking space for (something those of you who have to park on the street, in a crowded neighborhood, will understand).

STOP, OR I'LL... um... well... figure out something. Since my guns aren't loaded.

I feel safer already.

UPDATE: Apparently it's a problem in a lot of places.

TELEMARKETERS - THE NEXT GENERATION: BBC is taking hits for recording a television program on British viewers' TiVos without permission, as an advertising ploy. And they should. That's kind of spooky.

Link via Deep Purple Master, who has a few pithy comments himself.

CLANCY SHMANCY: Charles Murtaugh is disgusted with Tom Clancy, and with the bloggish insistence that Hollywood PC'ed The Sum of All Fears. Murtaugh says Clancy pc'd himself long before Hollywood got the chance.

Me, I'm not political. I just go for the fight scenes.

OLIVER STONE, CALL YOUR OFFICE. Kevin McGehee of Flyover Blogdom Today unpacks recent conspiracy theories and holds them up to the light.

EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON BLOGGING by Catherine Seipp. Go read it.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS: Katie Allison Granju at Loco Parentis posts a touching essay on the illnesses of her son.

Tonight I will wrap a freshly-bathed Elliot in a soft blanket and rock him on our wide porch facing the Smoky Mountains off in the distance. I'll sing to him about the moon and fairies and I'll count his breaths as he finally drifts off to sleep. I will probably weep a few tears for no good reason other than the almost physical sense of relief I have in the presence of his sweet smell and strong body...

ANTI-SEMITISM ON THE RISE IN RUSSIA. Apparently it never lost its solid base.

TALIBAN BARBIE - BITING SOCIAL COMMENTARY? JunkYardBlogger Bryan Preston bites back.

PLAGIARISM IS JUST SO TAXING - Doris Kearns Goodwin has resigned from the Pulitzer Prize board:

She wrote that she could no longer devote enough attention to the board because of the controversy surrounding the book [Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys] and the need to work on a biography of Abraham Lincoln...

ORGANIC DISSEMBLING? Terrence in Vancouver sends a link to this refutation of an article in the L.A. Times (registration required) about organic farming, wherein the reporter apparently picked through her source material to present a less than accurate picture. The refuting article is by one of her sources, Alex Avery, who works with the Center for Global Food Issues, a divison of the Hudson Institute. A check of the Hudson Institute site reveals that Michael Fumento is also affiliated with it, so I tend to give Avery credence in this discussion.

Avery's discussion is interesting even if you aren't particularly moved by organic farming, for its outlining of how a reporter can present a biased perspective and still appear to consult all "sides". To be fair to her, it also may show the difficulties of knowing who to depend on the most when writing about a topic you have no background in. But reading the article and then Avery's response tends me toward a conclusion of PCism on the hoof.

BIAS SLAPDOWN: Alley Writer holds nothing back in expressing an opinion about political correctness in the classrooms of Texas.

I say, Remember the Alamo!

A CLARIFICATION: If anyone should meander onto my page as a result of the Instalanche on Transterrestrial Musings, from the Professor linking Rand's response to my email, I would like to make a clarification of the good Professor's comment:

...This lengthy post from Rand Simberg, however, raised the 'evolution is just another religion' point that you sometimes hear from creationists. Simberg answers that just fine, but I've always felt that this quote from Isaac Asimov was dispositive:

It is the chief characteristic of the religion of science, that it works.

It is very apparent from Rand's post that he does not believe the moral extrapolations made by believers in evolution as a moral philosophy as well as a structure for scientific exploration are appropriate:

... it [evolution] should never, ever be taught as a moral rightness. We cannot derive morality purely from our genetic heritage, or from science classes. That way lies disaster.

It is natural, and an evolutionarily-advantageous behavior for males to rape females. That doesn't mean that we should approve of such behavior. I've posted numerous times in the past about the danger of equating 'natural' with 'good' or 'moral.' Nature is not our friend. Or our enemy. It's just how we got here.

…We can't derive morality from science, or at least not from the primevil urges of our hormones. That seems to the crux of the problem - people seem to think that our ancestors, or our origin, should define our current behavior.

Let me also note that I haven't said that "evolution is just another religion", a toss-off comment that indicates I dismiss evolution completely. I don't. I think many of its conclusions - especially as regards specific evolution - are true. What I was indicating is that evolution in its entirety is presented as law, not theory, in the majority of educational contexts, and the moral extrapolations that get their strength from evolution-as-law-not-theory are as much a religion as any other belief system. If you want to have that religion, fine. Just don't tell me you're keeping religion out of the classroom, then turn around and teach your form of it there.

MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF TEACHING EVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS: Evolution and creationism/intelligent design have been a topic of discussion for a while on Transterrestrial Musings (Rand Simberg) and other blogs, notably The Volokh Conspiracy (Eugene Volokh). As often happens, I'm late to that party, but I just sent an email to Rand with some comments about the discussion. Please note that I'm not making any effort to look at the two theories in a scientific way, because that's not my area of expertise and I would only embarrass myself thoroughly. You may think I do anyway, but that's for you to decide.

The headline above, and the email itself, should serve as sufficient introduction:

Rand -

I've read with interest your commentary about evolution vs creationism (I prefer the term "intelligent design"). One of your major objections to the teaching or adherence to a theory of intelligent design is that it limits scientific exploration. You also see it as a weakness of faith, a fairly harsh assessment. While I do agree that blind adherence to a theory can limit a search for truth, and a weak faith breeds fear, I think you are showing your own bias in your discussion, as well as not fully addressing the moral implications of an unchallenged presentation of evolutionary theory.

As long as intelligent design is a valid theory - which I think Volokh argued eloquently is the case - then refusing to consider it as an option is biased and unscientific. It's a theory of origin, not a theory of escapism. While it is inappropriate for someone to say, "Well, it's that way because God made it that way" and thus refuse to explore a question further, it is just as inappropriate to say, "Because eventually this explanation might lead to an irresolvable question, we're going to refuse to accept that this could be the answer even though it fits the facts".

You say:

It is the fact that it [intelligent design] is not disprovable (i.e., falsifiable) that puts it outside the realm of science. It's not simply an uninteresting theory--it is a useless copout (again, purely from a scientific perspective).

Is general evolution in its full manifestation provable? It's not replicable, we don't have historic accounts; it will never be more than an extrapolation from evidence. To assume it is to limit your explorations. Conversely, if someone developed a theory of how things should look if there was an intelligent designer, and set out to test it, would that be bad science? The originating event is not replicable, but its manifestations might be evident. If this scientist found, for example, that man appeared in his current form at one point in history, or other evidence that seem to point more to intelligent design than evolution, would you try to fit it into your own theory, or ignore it, because you don't see intelligent design as a valid theory? Especially given what you say here:

If I were to teach evolution in a school, I would state it not as "this is what happened," but rather, "this is what scientists believe happened."

Belief without proof is called "faith".

But my major objection to evolution being taught in the schools without any reference to intelligent design as an alternative is the social implications of the "religion" of evolution. I've taught both introductory psychology and sociology on the college level, and in every case the texts explained both individual and social behaviors in an evolutionary context, with many attendant moral extrapolations. An example is the "fight or flight" response. I'm not saying humans don't have that response, but the evolutionary explanation given for it is an extrapolation that isn't supported. The development of that response cannot be scientifically tracked or established, given that it happened prior to recorded history and is not still developing, so whence the conclusions as to why it developed? It is assumed that the extrapolation is true, which actually limits exploration rather than encouraging it - we know why it's there, so why look more deeply into its manifestations? Setting it as a trait that developed as an evolutionarily-preferred behavior gives its manifestations, in the eyes of some, an almost moral rightness. You have to go outside science to find reason to stem it in some contexts, when it would not have that moral gravitas to begin with if some evolutionists didn't present extrapolations as truth.

If you've been following the recent discussions of teen sexuality on some of the blogs, you've seen a number of references to "natural" behavior, to evolutionary imperative. That is a moral conclusion arising from evolution-as-religion. It's also used as a reason behind why sexual photographs of teenagers are so desired online - we're evolutionarily hardwired to seek out the best bets for self-perpetuation, thus, youth and attractiveness, so naturally people are drawn to sexual photos of youth. I'm not saying that all the arguments using evolution in their supportive statements would be endorsed by evolutionary scientists, but it is a major source of reasoning for those taking a variety of moral and behavioral stances. It is not a value-neutral, or morality-neutral, scientific theory. It is in our society treated as fact, and many people base their behavior on its extrapolated moral tenets. At the very least, schools should separate fact from those extrapolations.

As for the weakness of faith that belief in intelligent design supposedly indicates, I would posit that a similar weakness of faith exists in a scientific community fearful of incorporating intelligent design in its assessment of information, at the very least as a valid theory of origin until proven otherwise. It is either a fear that intelligent design is true, or an adamant belief that general evolution is law, not theory, despite its lack of full support; in either case the scientific pursuit is polluted by bias. What avenues of exploration are closed because of a belief in evolution similar to the religious closed-mindedness you mention in association with a belief in intelligent design? Why is questioning evolution considered heresy?

My psychology and sociology students were always treated to a lecture on how what you believe about origins has an impact on what you believe about behaviors and morality today. I made my own beliefs on it clear, and did not color my presentation of the class material with my own biases in the balance of the class except in asides offering an alternative extrapolation very obviously my own. I don't see how such an approach would suddenly destroy the foundations of scientific endeavor in this society, nor how intelligent design reasonably presented as an option of origin, in all its advantages, flaws and implications, would do the same. It also is not "promoting religion", if dissociated from the Bible and taught as a valid scientific option - which it is. Religion is about who the intelligent designer is, and different groups have different conclusions. I'm not suggesting we teach in public schools which conclusion is most likely - just as you would say "I would state it not as 'this is what happened,' but rather, 'this is what scientists believe happened.' "

And as a religious person, I'm not afraid of science in full flower, exploring every corner of the universe. I encourage it. I'm fascinated by it. Maybe there is intelligent life elsewhere, although I doubt it. I wouldn't stop scientific exploration for fear it will prove my faith wrong, nor do I deny that many aspects of evolutionary theory offer an excellent structure for scientific study. But I also don't believe evolution and faith are antithetical, or reasonably separated into 'reality' vs 'emotion'. It is that characterization in the face of the moral implications of belief in general evolution that give rise to my desire for intelligent design to be presented in schools as an optional theory of origin.

Thanks again for your thorough exploration of the topic.

best,
susanna cornett

UPDATE: Weary and frustrated, Rand Simberg has nonetheless rolled up his sleeves and taken me apart piece by piece in response to the above email. I appreciate his time and his tone, especially given that he thought he'd already done all that was needed and then here I come, late to the party, and start asking more questions. Since my goal is learning, and not debating for its own sake, I won't extensively answer his post right away. I need to absorb the information, from all his posts, and do some other reading. One thing I know is that I have not spent sufficient time reading the original texts of evolution. This is a topic important to me in part because I hope to be back in the classroom in a couple of years, and some of these implications may arise again. Since my area is criminal justice, the issue of origins and the evolutionary implications for behavior doesn't often come into play, except when the etiology of violent behavior is under discussion, so it's not something I have to know immediately how to address. Rand thinks what I've done so far is wrong. I think he didn't address my central concern - as evidenced by this comment (mine, then his):

[Susanna says] My psychology and sociology students were always treated to a lecture on how what you believe about origins has an impact on what you believe about behaviors and morality today.

[Rand says] If that's the case, then I beg your pardon, but you were misteaching them. Perhaps it does, but it most emphatically shouldn't.

The "perhaps it does" is quite disingenuous, because of course it does, and a scientist saying, 'Well, I can't help it if people misunderstand and misuse my data, and you shouldn't teach something you can't support even though they do rampantly', is not precisely fair.

A few notes from my brother Alan: For centuries scientific advancement was made by people who believed in God - and continues to be, in some quarters - so the two can march together. Also, what would be accepted as "proof" that evolution is false? The theory is never discredited, only modified with the new information. Also, Alan (who occasionally shows up in comments here) says:

...as Philip Johnson points out--and this guy proves - they will always trot out the 'scientific method', pat you on the head and send you away when at the end of the day they have made a philosophical, not a scientific, stand.

...any mention of God is fundamentally dismissed under the guise of 'scientific method' yet if they were scientists worth their salt they would come up with ways to test that theory, too.

If any of my readers would like to tackle this, I will post emails about it (that are reasoned and not just spoutings or attacks) on the writings page and link them here. Also, the comments section is open for business and ACD has already promised compelling argumentation as soon as he finishes his Gould book. If I decide to write more about it, it will also be on the writings page and linked here.

ON THE SEX FRONT: Jane Galt has a good post on the whole teen sex thing which hits a lot of the points I would make, after, of course, making the moral arguments based on religious beliefs that would then be either a) agreed with wholeheartedly by everyone who holds my beliefs or b) dismissed out of hand as silly by those who tend to dismiss as silly any moral arguments based on religion. In other words, I'd be preaching to the choir or to the backs of people walking away, so I've not gone there, this time.

To elaborate a little on what Jane Galt says, getting involved in sexual activity very young isn't the same as, say, wearing makeup at 11 or having your own bank account at 13. It can change your life, and "educating" people about going about it safely is not a panacea. If you want to look at how successful education campaigns are, look at the campaigns to get a high-risk group of adults to protect themselves against a painful disease and the possibility of a sure death through contracting AIDS:

Early in 2000, syphilis had "nearly disappeared" from Los Angeles County's gay population, when an AIDS Healthcare Foundation clinic reported diagnosing about 50 cases among gay and bisexual men. Health officials then launched a $560,000 safe-sex media campaign and "four months later declared the outbreak under control." But this summer, the officials "made a startling about-face," conceding that syphilis -- which often indicates a rise in other sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV -- was endemic among men who have sex with men, "[b]ucking a nationwide trend."

...A CDC official attributed the outbreak to a "combination of denial and incompetence." Investigators have discovered that most of the men who contracted syphilis "shrugged off the lessons of the AIDS epidemic and had unprotected sex."

The article does go on to report successes in other realms as a result of the educational campaign. I'm not saying that it's a useless effort; of course it's not. But it's not all that, either. Who amongst us believes that teens don't routinely dismiss advice in a combination of denial and incompetence?

I can't remember who said it, but someone spoke of the beautiful innocence of two young teens learning sex together. Please. Shades of "Blue Lagoon". In our society, sexual innocence in the sense that you aren't sure what it is or that everyone thinks you should do it is gone by middle school, if it lingers that long, unless your parents are careful about what television and movies you watch. Kids having sex at 14 aren't doing it because suddenly he realized that tab A fit in slot B and hey, this is pretty fun! It carries a lot of emotional weight and peer pressure, even then. Maybe especially then. Someone else said sex is just another form of recreation amongst his crowd - there was that emotional thing, of course, gets a little iffy occasionally, but hey, that's life. No, it's not. That's irresponsibility. How many times have you cried all night because your tennis partner didn't call you to play again? Or said your backhand just doesn't compare to Jennifer's? How many people have anorexia or other dysfunctions because going skiing with them for the weekend was just a way for their skiing partner to stave off boredom?

I'm not convinced by the arguments I've seen of sexual activity amongst today's teens as a "natural behavior" that should be at least left alone and possibly even encouraged. I like most of what Jane Galt has to say about it, and I'm disappointed by the attitude of some others. But it does prove one thing that I always told my students at the beginning of courses in psychology and sociology:

What you believe about the origin and development of the earth - intelligent design or accident - does have an impact on everything you do, on your perception of the world, and on your sense of what's right and wrong.

UPDATE: I have been roundly chided both about my "forgetting" of who mentioned innocent teenagers, and my misrepresentation of the context. I suggest you check out the truth while I have any credibility left.

I TAKE A NAP, AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENS: Bill Quick has a new design! Awesome - check it out.

LIGHT BLOGGING today, since I'm home with a nasty headache that doesn't mesh with computing very well. I hope to post some this evening, however, after the Tylenol and a nap work their magic.

A PEARL OF GREAT PRICE




Mariane Pearl, the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, is shown in this handout photo after giving birth to Adam Pearl on May 28, 2002, in Paris, a spokeswoman for the family said.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUBURBAN PRINCESS! The smart, sweet and funny author of Life as a Vole blog turns 17 today. Check out her latest posts, send her an email, and generally let her know that we're very happy the next generation includes people like her.

ANOTHER DISSENTING VOICE: Mike Golby at Page Count doesn't much like the SFSU Blog Burst:

Hosted on Joe Katzman's site, Winds of Change, Blog Burst took place yesterday. The material comprises a barrage of shrill, anti-Palestinian rants…

As far as I know, you either call it a Google bomb or a bunch of good ol' boys acting like ‘eedjits’. I believe these people are seeking publicity and an outlet for their frustration, impotence, and anger…

For myself, I heap scorn on our war bloggers and their 'Palestinian' equivalents. They are baby 'disillusionaries'. Their 'static' renders them useless to anybody, especially the causes or governments they supposedly serve. They are worthy only of derision; nothing else. The going will get tough but they will not stay the pace. Trust me on this. I know these things.

Mike, dear, I return your regard with enthusiasm. Give my regards to Shelley as well. And please, feel free to leave comments on my page any time.

I suggest those of you interested in knowing more check out Mike's post.

It is, after all, a free country. Even for eedjits.

NEWS FLASH: NY TIMES BIASED AND LACKING IN DIVERSITY. I read about it here.

FUN WITH PHOTOS: Apparently the folks at SF Indymedia need a little help with understanding the meaning of "attacked", so I thought I'd do my best.

First, their photo, caption and text from a Palestinian "peace rally" over the weekend:

After Bridge Protest, cops go crazy and attack child
by A • Saturday May 25, 2002 at 09:36 PM




After the Take It To The Bridge Protest on May 25th, police attacked an eleven year old girl named Sophia, throwing her on the ground and binding her arms together. She was left face down on the ground for over five minutes before they took her away. After all that, they then had the nerve to arrest her older brother Musa for bringing her to the protest. Are the Presidio Park Police so messed up that they must beat up children to feel good about themselves. San Franciscans should be outraged!

Now, let's look at a victim from a suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001:




Let's explore this a moment. An eleven year old girl is placed on the grass on her belly for five minutes after yelling at the cops and giving them the finger. A woman is covered in blood after someone tries to kill her with a bomb while she's eating pizza. Who was the victim of someone "crazy"? Who was "attacked"? If you answered "the girl", you need to look at the photos again and then reconsider the question.

No where in the Indymedia coverage did they mention actual injuries to the child in SF; I'm sure they would have had prominent photos if she had any. The jpgs of the girl are labeled "childabuse" in their files, incidentally.

MAKE MINE A ROAST BEEF ON WRY: Howard Fienberg asks an important question:

If James Carville and Geraldo Rivera were drowning and you could only save one, would you read the paper or make a sandwich?

INSIDE HAMAS: Meryl Yourish analyzes a UPI article on an interview with a leader of Hamas. Some of what he said:

The militant also explained the rules for recruiting or accepting suicide bombers, which he said were increasing rapidly in numbers. He said that the recruit or volunteer "should be a committed Muslim, his parents content with him and loved by his family, that he is not the only son to his parents and nor is he the breadwinner in the family."

"He has to be mature, dependable and strong, and we prefer he is not married. It is important that his martyrdom becomes a model and incentive for others to carry out martyr attacks," Shehadeh said...

He described as a "blessing that the Jews are from every race, color and breed because it makes it easier" for bombers to blend in with Israelis in order to kill them.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: And while you're at it, see what happens to many Israeli bombing victims who don't die.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BILL QUICK!

LEANING IN MY DIRECTION - this cool blog, new to me, is worth a look. A woman after my own heart, not to mention politics.

ARMIES ARE WEAPONS, NOT SHIELDS. We need another Ulysses S Grant. Any suggestions as to who that might be?

(Hint: Powell is a McClellan.)

LINKWHORING AND CRONYISM IN THE BLOGOSPHERE? Kevin Holtsberry has an interesting rant about a recent brouhaha involving Richard Bennett and mixed in with the whole teen sex discussion wending through the blogosphere this week. I haven't followed this much, since I've been out of town suffering the trauma of 28K dialup on a computer with 32MG RAM, so I can't comment on what he says. But he has a number of generally insightful comments about blogging, deification of some bloggers and the warring desires to stand independent yet get linked widely for the sake of hits. This caught my eye particularly:

…I think the real problem is that he [Bennett] said what he believes but did so outside the mainstream - he ventured into areas like lesbianism and sex and didn't have the cavalier libertarian live and let live attitude.

I've noticed that libertarians tend to be "live and let live" until your living interrupts their preferences. I have strong libertarian tendencies myself, tied in with my conservative philosophies, so I keep an eye on the libertarians to see what they're saying. Most of them do have preferences, and do espouse their adoption by various individuals and entities, but I don't often see a unifying philosophy of libertarianism that gives coherence to their ideas. The concept of "do whatever you want as long as you harm only yourself" is a fairly ambiguous idea; what constitutes harm? Who has standing for a declaration of harm - only individuals? Or does that include entities such as society or government? And if I get a law passed in my state that limits you more than you want to be limited, well, I’m not forcing you to keep living here. Why are your wishes more important than mine? I think all of those questions have good answers, and I'd like to see some of the excellent minds in the blogosphere tackle those larger issues alongside the issue-based posting that usually rules.

Meantime, enjoy what Kevin has to say. And this is a freebie - he didn't link me, comment on my blog or send me an email announcement. A link for the blogging purists.

WHAT DOES WAR LOOK LIKE? We see the photographs, we read the papers, we debate amongst ourselves, about what war is and what it means. We see the memorial today at the WTC site as the recovery is ended, and rebuilding begins. The discussion sometimes sanitizes the reality. When you demand war, realize you are demanding death. When you resist war, realize that you aren’t likely to save lives, just changing who will die.

Memorial Day was Monday, a time to remember those who died protecting this country, or the countries of others. Maybe the reasons behind the battles weren’t philosophically what you support, but the deaths were very real and the courage of the soldiers true. Two bloggers have written recently about the USS Stark, shot by an Iraqi jet fighter in 1987, supposedly by accident; 37 soldiers died. Go read the names on Tony Adragna’s site; then go read what they became as a result of that attack, on Doubting Thomas’s site. An excerpt:

In late May, we (my boss, and four other assistants) were ordered to go to Frankfurt to work on identifying and piecing together the casualties from the USS Stark, a Navy frigate that had been attacked by an Iraqi fighter jet. Two Exocet missiles were fired at the ship, and we were told anywhere from 30-50 sailors were killed…

Some genius colonel or general decided, while we worked, to let us watch the Naval memorial service for the Stark that was showing on AFN. Here we were, putting these poor bastards back together, trying to figure out what arm belonged to what trunk, and so forth, and there, right before our eyes, were their grieving families. I am standing in two feet of blood and guts, fried body fat, and all the fingers, feet, eyeballs, and decapitated corpses I wish NEVER to see again, and all of a sudden I see on the screen the family of the boy whose decapitated head I am, right at that moment, holding in my hands…

This dead kid was probably asleep in his rack, dreaming of getting laid or going home on leave, when the missiles struck. Now his head is in my hands, and there's his Mom and Dad, who will never get to see him alive, or (thank God) like this, with no body, just a head, and an expression that still haunts me.

That is what war produces. As we consider escalation, let’s be clear about our goals, deal harshly with those who’s behavior jeopardizes our soldiers, and do whatever we can to make sure as few as possible of our precious fellow Americans end up on a military morgue floor - or in Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island - being pieced together by weeping compatriots.

WANT TO SEE THE DANGERS in anti-hate-speech laws? Go see War Now! While we discuss the rise in anti-Semitism, don't forget the importance of free expression of dissenting views. The problem is not dissension, but threats, intimidation or actual physical harm. Any time you support some type of protectionist law (whether it be speech or behavior or commercial activity), you have to understand the logical extensions of that law, and make sure that the cure isn't worse than the disease. Often abusive behavior with a racist tinge can be addressed with standing laws like terroristic threatening or assault, without instituting protections that can be used to quash honest disagreement.

AN 11 YEAR OLD GIRL HAD A BABY in Connecticut this week, according to the radio news (I haven't found it online yet). The 75-year-old father of the baby says the girl seduced him when she was 10.

So what do you think should happen to the baby's father?

DON'T SMOKE: Archipelago has a plea from a friend who just lost her father to emphysema/lung cancer.

My grandfather rolled his own smokes - Prince Albert in a can - until he got cancer of the larnyx and doctors removed his voicebox. Since smoking would suffocate him because of the permanent hole in his throat from the operation, he switched to chewing tobacco until he died of cancer and emphysema in his mid 60s. He was not my favorite person, but it was an ugly way to die.

I don't smoke, and I don't drink, but I do think sometimes that my current aversion to exercise and predilection for chocolate are comparably unhealthy. Something to think about.

A DISSENTING VOICE: Not everyone particularly cares for the Blog Burst about the SFSU incident and its corollaries:

I am concerned about this so-called Blog Burst. Though bloggers are not Journalists and may express their opinion at will, what do you call a formalized process to gather like minds together, resulting in multiple voices united in expressions of anger, paranoia, and hate?

...The concept of Blog Burst disturbs me. The results of this event disturbs me.

Shelley of Burning Bird blog sounds disturbed, don't you think? I personally think the group that attacked the Hillel students were multiple voices united in expressions of anger, paranoia, and hate. But to each her own.

She also lists quotes from various blogs participating, including mine. I disagree with her, naturally, but as per usual I'm offering you the opportunity to check out her objections yourself, especially since her complaint includes problems with my accusations of "moral equivalency" while she engages in it herself:

In the interests of equal representation I'm also linking to an IndyMedia posted comment representing the General Union of Palestinian Students viewpoint. Note, though, that IndyMedia is not known for being an unbiased publication.

Bb aka Shelley aka Weblog Bosswoman, honey, the problem is not that both sides are presented. The problem is that in the interests of "equal representation", unresearched, unsupported, unquestioned allegations are quoted as equal to proveable harm. Linking around to "he said she said" posts without context, when one side is clearly wrong, does not make you morally superior. It makes you an equivocator.

I personally would be very happy to see an independent investigation into the SFSU incidents, if those doing the investigation are willing to actually say one side was more wrong without feeling the need to "rescue" the side that is wrong from any public disapprobation. And if in fairness the investigation found that some of the Hillel group were instigators, were abusive and threatening, then I would support punishment for them. What I find disgusting, and what I highlight in my Blog Burst contribution, is that in the name of "tolerance" and political correctness, officials and media don't seem willing to roundly condemn vicious behavior because of who did it. I think if the ones attacked were pro-choice and the ones being ugly were pro-life, you'd see no hesitation in condemning it. Ditto if the attacked were black and the attackers white. I don't condone that kind of hateful behavior from any group, especially from ones that I associate with. I am... disturbed... that others seem willing to equivocate when they have sympathies with one side.

Shelley, you might want to read your own blog:

What I am going to say is that those who use moral arguments as axes to chop the world into finer and finer bits, cutting away all who disagree with them, will soon find themselves surrounded only by like minds and like voices. And I wish them joy of it.

If you go visit Miss Shelley, please don't miss the comments section wherein the discussion continues.

I wish you the joy of her.

DIVORCE IS A DEAD ISSUE: Reader Dave Menke, who's about to be deputized as finder of fascinating stories, manages to further enhance the honor of my home state by sending this article:

Divorce granted to dead husband

NEWPORT [KY] — Tony Steffen has been dead for two years. Nevertheless, he just got divorced.

In a case national experts are calling extraordinary, a circuit court judge in Northern Kentucky has dissolved the 58-year marriage of Mr. Steffen, who was 81 when he died, and his widow, Byrl, now 86.

Behind the unusual ruling is a fight between the couple's adult children over a $1.5 million estate.

The Steffens' son, Roger S. Steffen, and daughter, Susan Pearman, are estranged. Roger Steffen is aligned with his mother, and Ms. Pearman had been aligned with her father.

This is definitely dark humor, but humorous nonetheless. One of those things where you have to laugh to keep from crying. Families can do really awful things to each other in the throes of death and money, which is very sad. In a story I remember from my childhood, a man died and his widow was too ill to attend the funeral. She wanted him to be buried on top of a steep, isolated hill, and their children wanted him buried in a cemetery at its base that was more convenient. Since she didn't attend the funeral, they had him buried in the lower cemetery. They disturbed the ground where she wanted him buried, and later allowed her to have a memorial stone put there without telling her where his body really was. I've always thought that was one of the meanest things I'd heard of.

If this article's characterization of Roger Steffen is accurate, I think we've hit a new low.

PILOTS AND GUNS - NOT THE FIRST CHOICE: Dan drops the Happy Fun and fully engages his inner Pundit in this excellent piece on whether commercial pilots should have guns in the cockpits. I agree with his argument that pilots with guns are not a sufficient protection, and the debate over it has obscured exploration of other ideas. I think pilots should have the option to have guns (and he gives a good model for that), but our freedom has to be protected first and foremost by each individual. There is a happy (fun?) medium somewhere between total government control and anarchy, and we need to find where that is with respect to our safety in this country.

I flew home to Kentucky for the weekend, and since it was my first time in the air since 9/11, and I flew out of Newark International where two of the 9/11 planes originated, I was very conscious of security and the possibilities for terrorism. I went over in my mind the ways I could react if something happened, not in an obsessive way, but in the way that all women will recognize. This is not something familiar to most men, but I've talked to enough women about it to know it's pretty universal with them - we are always conscious of the possibility of attack by a predator with sexual or other intent. Most women are physically vulnerable to the type of men who assault (few PeeWee Herman types become attack rapists or robbers), and from a young age we're taught to "be careful". That works out practically to a constant sense of the environment, of inexplicable or "yellow flag" behavior, of where we'll be when as a factor in how we dress, and so forth. For example, if I'm going to be emerging from the mall with packages late at night by myself, then I'm going to park under a light and as close to the door as possible even if I'm driving my brand new sports car; a man is more likely to park where the dings won't mar his paint job. We're not always smart about it, but it's a thread of lesser or greater strength through the lives of most women. The closest most men get is the awareness of environment while walking down an unfamiliar city street at night - no paranoia, but a consciousness of who's around, where there's movement, who seems to be out of place and what defensive measures are available.

I think we're going to need to develop this sense in regards to potential terrorism, in whatever context. A valuable book that addresses this - for women, but much of the information would be useful to men too - is The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker. Basically, he says we already know subconsciously when things "aren't right" - we just need to learn how to listen to our fears, distinguish between inappropriate and appropriate fears, and develop in our minds the outlines of how to respond to various threats. One of the most important aspects is appropriate vs inappropriate - we hear the PC crowd get shrilly hysterical about bias and profiling, but a populace trained to recognize what a real concern looks like is less likely to give in to generalizations.

Ultimately, it's about me and my willingness to protect myself and my fellow citizens. I cede many of those functions to the government, but not completely, and not without demanding accountability and evidence of competence. What makes this country great is ultimately its individualism, and that is what will also make us safe.

A TEENAGER WITH A GOOD ATTITUDE. Congratulations, Valerie. Good luck.

JUST WHAT I NEEDED: A book with all the pertinent info on gun control and gun rights, with one of three authors none other than Dave Kopel of NRO. New, out just in time for Father's Day.

I think I'll buy one for my niece.

WHEN DOES REPORTING BECOME SMEARING? Media Minded has some good thoughts on that, in the context of a Signorile takedown. Worth your time.

PERFORMANCE ART I COULD SUPPORT: Do you think we could get the National Endowment for the Arts to give grants to more of this kind of art?

BRING PEACE TO THE MIDDLE EAST - INVADE IRAQ: David Hogberg at Cornfield Commentary thinks it's past time to take out Saddam, and also thinks that will give the US and Israel the diplomatic freedom to rain full righteous indignation on Arafat and his minions. I don't agree with all he says, but he makes some good points and this is one of the best:

Some will argue that this characterization of Arabs is unfair, that most Arabs are peaceful and abhor terrorism. That is very likely true; it is also irrelevant. Those Arabs are not the ones in charge throughout much of the Arab world. The extremists are.

WILL ADVERTISE FOR FOOD: Tony Woodlief at Sand in the Gears has found an interesting assimilation of the homeless into the market economy.

NEGATION THROUGH MORAL EQUIVALENCE: You’ve all read about the pro-Israel peace rally held at San Francisco State University that turned ugly when pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupted it with threats, slurs and intimidating slogans such as “Hitler did not finish the job”. Student Benjamin Epstein gives a picture of what it was like to be there; this excerpt describes the end, as the supporters of Israel closed their rally with music and prayers:

My ears were ablaze with sound. Screams. "Zionists off our campus!" "Racists!" mixed with achingly beautiful Jewish music, and voices of a thousand singing. If I turned my head to the left, I saw the angry faces, screaming with rage, waving black and green flags. And when I turned my head to the right, I saw a sea of blue and white, singing people. And I was in the middle…

The descriptions of the event, even in the mainstream media, highlight more aggressive behavior on the part of the pro-Palestinian group than the pro-Israeli group:

As the rally wound down, some pro-Palestinian students crossed the barricades, confronting people on the other side and allegedly yelling such statements as, ``Hitler should have finished the job.'' A pro-Palestinian protester tore down an Israeli flag and stomped on it.

In the face of this information, the efforts at moral equivalence are disturbing. In several articles, newspapers countered descriptions from supporters of Israel with rebuttals and accusations from the Palestinian group. Even an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle stood for nothing because of its moral equivalence:

Whatever you want to call it, anti-Jewish incidents -- and, perhaps to a lesser extent, anti-Arab ones -- appear to be on the rise in the Bay Area, a disturbing trend.

This is a quantifiable thing. Are they both rising to the same extent? The SF Chronicle seems reluctant to say “no”.

Extremists on both sides are trying to censor the other. Zionism is not racism, and all criticism of the Israeli government is not tantamount to anti- Jewish prejudice, any more than opposition to U.S. government policies is anti- Americanism.

There is a difference between yanking down a flag and stomping on it while yelling words that basically mean, “You should be dead”, and calling someone a “camel jockey”. It’s inappropriate to use ethnic slurs, but that is not morally equivalent to wishing someone dead because of his or her race or ethnic origin. This reluctance to call evil “evil” is the same thing that gives Arafat and his homicidal thugs the ability to continue playing both ends in Palestine – targeting innocent Israelis repeatedly while holding up their hands to the world and saying, “I’m just protecting myself” when called on it.

I’m not a Zionist in the sense that I have religious beliefs about Israel’s existence. I do believe that as a protection for the Jewish people, and as a democracy in a part of the world with precious few human rights, it should be supported by the US. But I see this current rash of anti-Semitism, both here and in Europe, as a re-igniting of a sentiment that has lain dormant but has not gone away for decades, or even centuries. The Palestinian situation is an excuse, not a reason. That’s what makes this attitude on the part of the media so disturbing. Their insistence on moral equivalence gives hatred a place to fester and grow under the protection of a misguided application of “tolerance”. Yes, there are some supporters of Israel who have said and done inappropriate or even hateful things. It’s not inappropriate moral equivalence to say that’s wrong.

It is inappropriate moral equivalence to say “camel jockey” is the same as “I wish you were dead because you’re a Jew”.

This post gives my thoughts on what’s going on with the SFSU incident and its aftermath, and it’s part of a larger effort to bring attention to the issue. Joe Katzman of Winds of Change, who organized the “blog burst”, wants you to know this:

This blog can only comment on one or two facets of the travesty at SFSU. Other dimensions of this incident and the alarming trends it represents are detailed in the full SFSU Blog Burst Index at Winds of Change.

I recommend you visit there and check out what others have to say. It’s important to understand. I opened with a comment from Benjamin Epstein, who was at the SFSU rally. Let me close with another:

…this is something I don't think I'll ever forget. And I don't mean remembering for the rest of my life. I mean its something I'd remember in my next life. It's something deep in the residual memory of all Jews, who recall Anti-Semitism. I have seen its face.

Don’t let that face be yours. And don't let the moral equivalence of the media blind you to what's right vs wrong.

IT'S A GOOD START: A panel investigating the mistakes made in the case of Rilya Wilson in Florida has released its report, with recommendations for changes in the Florida child services department. This is a political hot potato, in this Florida gubernatorial election year, so we'll see what actually happens.

It's apparent from the discussion up to this point that bureaucracy contributed heavily to the mistakes made in Rilya's case; what concerns me is that more bureaucracy is seen as the solution, rather than a streamlining of the entire process. Some of the recommendations - like criminal background checks on foster parents - are so common sense that it's appalling they weren't done before. But I think two factors - one discussed, one not discussed - are at fault too. The one discussed is that the caseworker in charge of Rilya's case had apparently been fired and rehired twice, and had quit prior to the reporting on Rilya's case because of other problems with her work. As a government employee who's been around the civil service system quite a bit (although not until recently a part of it), I suspect this has to do with how that system makes it difficult to get rid of incompetent employees. The "not discussed" part is just the whole govt child care program itself. We have a need to protect our children, and remove them from situations where their safety is at risk, but the bureaucracy that builds up around the laws passed more as a result of good intentions than good research is a frightening and harmful monolith resistent to good sense and change. And, as we have seen in the Rilya case, when a child is truly in dire circumstances that bureaucracy often operates against her interests rather than for them.

We cannot see the Rilya case as support for the sense amongst the cradle-to-grave crowd that children are the state's responsibility and parents can be allowed to raise them only as long as the state thinks they are doing an ok job. The child services monolith needs to be cut back and set on its logical path as a protection for children truly at risk, and that trimming of bureaucracy will allow closer supervision of children like Rilya, rather than the diffuse approach taken now where, truly, little is done well.

And, in the meantime, the question still remains: Where is Rilya? She can't be allowed to become just a symbol. It's likely she's dead, by now, but possibly not. I hope as much effort is being expended to find her as is being expended to point fingers and find new ways to add to the bureaucracy of child services.

SPEAKING OF MY NIECE, the Saturday Ramble is up. And if you can figure out why I have that section of the photo code visible, let me know how to fix it.

I hope you're having a great weekend.

UPDATE: Several people identified what I had done wrong, and sure enough when I followed through on their advice the problem was fixed. Thanks so much. I knew that when I laid my ignorance out there for correction, I'd not be ignorant for long. And that's a good thing - eventually I'll actually know what I'm doing (at least with html).

I NEED HELP: My teenage niece fell victim to a liberal sociology teacher this past semester, and has been saying things like, "My teacher said that people who own guns are 40% more likely to shoot themselves than someone who breaks into their home", and such. She's decided that hunting is cruel, and people who hunt for sport are just not nice people (that would include her grandfather, dad and brother). Without my cj books in hand and little time to search the Internet, I'm coming up dry for statistics to show a more accurate picture of the issue of gun ownership - why a) it's important to have the right to own guns and b) why hunting is not cruel. I can explain it, but I need the numbers because she's in the grips of teenage "I don't believe adults who I've known since I was spitting up formula" dismissiveness. What I want to do is basically develop a little cheat sheet of pertinent stats, and I figure you all are the ones to ask for help in getting over my brain hiccup. I'll put whatever I get into a compilation post and put it on the "writings" site, for handy reference by anyone. You can post in comments or send email.

It's either that or sign her up for a re-education class. (Or, possibly, introducing her to a really cute firearms instructor.)

UPDATE: I've gotten a lot of good information about this issue, which I will compile and post on writings. Some I've sent along to my niece. And I think I'll investigate firing ranges near her college - lessons would be a great Christmas present, don't you think?

OK, SO MAYBE THE POLITICS ARE ROUGHER: Reader Dave Menke sent me the link to this comment on the WYMT-TV website. WYMT operates out of Hazard, KY, (in Perry County, for those who looked at the Kentucky map, linked below). If you're really interested, the videos of the ads are available at WYMT's website.

The race for property valuation administrator in Floyd County is getting extremely personal. The candidates are lodging allegations against the others' character. In her ad, Connie Hancock alleges her opponent Glenn David May has been arrested or charged many times for various offenses. She claims he was arrested for assault, and claims he tried to bite another person's ear off.

In his counter ad, May denies ever being charged for DUI, and purports to have an X-rated tape of his opponent, a portion of which appears in his commercial.

Today, Connie Hancock fires back with a radio ad featuring her and her husband denying that she is the person in the video. Though May's campaign consultant acknowledges his spot makes eastern Kentucky politics look like the Jerry Springer show, May is sticking by his commercial and campaign tactics.

Voters in Floyd County are shocked by the personal nature of the commercials, but are afraid things could get worse before the Tuesday primary.

The ads are airing on WYMT. Federal regulations prevent television stations from editing or stopping any ad that is paid for by a candidate and meets FCC rules. Only ads from political parties and special interest groups can be pulled from air if they prove inaccurate.

You can just feel the pain on the part of WYMT that they can't edit or refuse the ads.

GOOD JOB: Jonah Goldberg mentioned one of my favorite places on the Web, JunkYardBlog, in his Washington Times article on blogging Friday. Excellent! "The Blogger", as he is now pseudonymously known, is a gentleman and a scholar, with good thoughts and the ability to articulate them. I recommend you spend some time over at his place.

IMMIGRATION AND ASSIMILATION: Is our culture the only one in the world that doesn't get respect? Scutum Sobieski takes a look, and points out implications of the current attitude in the PC power elite.

LIKE I SAID: This FoxNews article says that Wednesday was the highest alert day since 9/11, especially in the NYC area. I mentioned that below - I was at Liberty State Park that day. It's also Fleet Week, as the article mentions. What I don't say below, because I didn't learn it until afterward, is that the helicopters in the photograph are flying a lost wing formation, in honor of the Jersey City police officer killed in the line of duty last year. The photo captures them in front of the WTC center site which, to me, makes the tribute even more poignant.

JOHN McCAIN: TRUE, KIND, FAIR. The NY Times review of Elizabeth Drew 's book about John McCain gushes about the qualifications of Drew, and approving of her book, for the most part. But one comment was especially interesting:

Although she notes, with understatement, that Mr. McCain is known for his scratchy temper, the reader rarely sees him losing his cool or being anything but true, kind and fair.

Ha. No bias there.

THE LINE IN NEWARK INTERN'L was pretty bad - took me over an hour and a half to get through security. They didn't confiscate my crochet needle (is that a good thing? or bad thing?), but a bomb-sniffing dog checked out the line about an hour before I got to the actual security checkpoint and I saw them going through someone's luggage as I went out the other side. They did random luggage checks in Detroit for the people getting on the connecting flight. The flights were fine, but I got to Newark at 4 and didn't get to Lexington until 10, so it was tiring.

Today will be busy, running around to my niece's music class, going to lunch with my parents, then to my sister's for the night. Posting will happen, but since my brother and sister both have dial-up accounts, I don't think I'll have the patience to post a lot (these slow load rates after having DSL at home and LAN at work is making me nuts). Also, for some bizarre reason, my family seems to think I should visit with them instead of spending time online. Go figure.

OFF TO THE COUNTRY: I'm heading back to Kentucky for a few days, and I'm scrambling this afternoon to get a few things done before going to Newark Intern'l. Posting will continue, but likely sporadically, during the weekend. Now that I am photo-post expert, look for photographs of my adventures.

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP: Laura Ingraham takes down Mary McGrory's latest column about gun nuts and Ashcroft. Excellent read, via DailyPundit. One thing I found interesting:

One highly-acclaimed antigun scholar, Michael Bellesiles, has already seen his book Arming America (Random House) debunked as fraudulent. When other scholars questioned his data on gun ownership in early America, he claimed his supporting documentation was lost in a flood.

This shows, to me, that the discussion about Bellesiles is really over; all that's left now is whatever formal procedure Emory decides to take in response to his pathetic "scholarship". He has moved his way completely out of the realm of reasonable doubt and firmly into the "liar" column. I keep feeling little twinges of sympathy, because he's fallen so far, so completely. But he was the one who sought fame and ideological furtherence at the cost of truth and academic rigor. And any academic - liberal or conservative - who does the same should be similarly debunked. I'm glad he was caught, and I'm very pleased that it was such a public discussion for two reasons: It warns other academics not to fudge or fake data; and it alerts the public in general that it's not only possible to do, but actually being done.

When you're dealing with guns, speak the truth, or you'll be shot down.

EASTERN KENTUCKY SAGA: There’s truth, and there’s context, which gives bare truth a different look. A primary election is impending in the Kentucky county where I grew up; last weekend, four people who are involved in some way in the election were shot at, none injured. The shootings were covered in the largest daily in the area, the Lexington Herald-Leader, and one of the reporters is a former colleague of mine. I know he knows the area, because he’s from that part of the state. Yet the article has the feel of a bunch of escapees from Deliverance:

The investigator, Billy Rowland Phillips, was one of four Clay County residents involved in the clerk's race, including White, who say they were shot at between late Sunday night and early Monday morning.

Clay County Sheriff Edd Jordan, who is investigating the attack on White on a rural road in the county's southeastern corner, has said it was "politically motivated."

…claims and counterclaims about Sunday night's shooting are flying in this tiny county.

…Juanita Laughran, a clerk at the Family Drug Center in Manchester, said a lot of customers have been talking about the incidents. They're all taking the hoopla in stride, she said.

"People come in and say that's the way politics are," she said, "there's liable to be a killing."

Three of my grandparents and both my parents grew up in Clay County, and so did I. My childhood was typical middle-class America, with two school teacher parents, Partridge Family on the tube when we could get the antenna to pick up that channel out of Knoxville, and Chef Boy r Dee pizza on hectic evenings. We lived on a family farm, my grandparents just down the road, and a lot of our summer meals came literally straight from the garden. I rode my bicycle up and down the road, went to basketball games at the high school and traveled all over the eastern United States on family vacations. We did country things, ate country foods, but that's no different from the family traditions passed down in families all over the United States. How normal is that?

But there was a difference, compared to what others tell me of their childhoods. A cousin of my dad’s was murdered when I was young, and two other relatives were involved in killings themselves. A friend of my sister’s lost her parents and pregnant sister in law to a sniper shooting through the windows of their home; some years after I left home, two murdered drug dealers were found in the trunk of an abandoned car a mile from my parents’ home. When I was in college, I wrote an article on feuds in the county in the early to mid 1900s; my professor wanted me to submit it for publication, but my parents asked me not to for fear that emotions still ran too high in the families of those involved.

Does that make where I come from so very different? I don’t know. I could be blind to it. Sometimes I think it is, sometimes I think every place has its skeletons, its histories, its Amy Fischers and Columbines, its drug killing on the corner or family dispute that ends in death. My brother pointed out one comment from the article:

“…this tiny county.”

Clay County is in the top third in square miles amongst the 120 Kentucky counties, larger than both Fayette and Jefferson counties, the biggest population centers. It does have only 23,000 or so people, but then many counties have fewer. The county seat is fewer than 2,000 in population, but again, many are smaller. Yes, that's fewer people than worked in the WTC, but then, that's NYC, not Kentucky. So in what way is the county “tiny”, given the context? The reporters know all this. I think the “tiny” was an effort to create the impression of small, as in “small minds”; small, as in “hick town”; small, as in “you can’t expect better of these people”.

There is a lot of poverty where I grew up, and a lot of people who could do better if they just tried. There’s a lot of illiteracy, and certainly poor grammar and strong country accents. I don’t see a major quantifiable difference between that and the same conditions in, say, Brooklyn, or Detroit, or LA, or Anywhere, USA. Then again, there are studies that say the South is more violent, more illiterate, more closed.

I think, if I get beyond my defensiveness, that where I grew up is probably more rough-edged than most of suburban America, and maybe one of the reasons we hear about those rough country folk is because all classes and races are mixed in together – when only a few people live in a place, you’re bound to know the families for generations back, regardless of their social status, and usually you’re kin somewhere. That means whenever something like this shooting happens, it’s not a group of people saying “I didn’t see anything”, but rather people saying, “I know folks on both sides, and it’s a shame.” The people speaking are often working or middle class, so they connect with the majority of news viewers. And I think there is a Deliverance factor - this kind of activity supports the preconceptions many have of rural Appalachia, and it's easier to evoke the stereotype than contextualize the actuality.

So, in a country where the rough parts of town are separated from the middle class, and where having lived in a place 10 years qualifies as an old timer, a place like my home county stands out.

I think, ultimately, what I object to most is that stereotype swallowing up the good in a mocking caricature. And I just hate it that someone from eastern Kentucky is the one doing the mocking.

NOTE: For anyone who’s interested, here is a map of Kentucky showing population levels by county. Clay County (lower right) is where I grew up, just northwest of the C; I’ve also lived in Pulaski, Fayette, Oldham, Jefferson, Warren and McLean counties, and lived just across the line from Calloway County, in Tennessee.

NOT THAT I’M PROUD, but that photo below is the very first photo posted on this blog. It’s been community effort, even though one of the community gave yet was unaware of his contribution (doesn't that sound chilling). The Dodd put the photo on the Net for me and sent a great wad of code that didn't quite fit Blogger but contained most of the necessary info, Martin Devon and Henry Hanks each sent me additional code, and I tried to put it all together… with little success. It was user error, definitely. Finally I went looking for a photo on another blog where I could snatch source code, and Jim Treacher unknowingly contributed this valuable part of my raw materials. Studying all this code together, I finally figured out my error and the result is as you see below! Thanks all around, I could not have done it by myself (and that’s not just a throwaway line – it’s the unvarnished truth.)

And if you're wondering... the final holdup was that I was using the html version of the URL for the img src section of the code, when I need to use the jpg version. When I figured that out, I went to Properties on the page with the photo, copied that version of the URL, and pasted it into the img src section. Voila! You can even click on the photo and it will take you to the source page, if you should wish to put the photo on your own site (of course properly attributed to me), and spread my fame as a photographer far and wide.

THE SOUNDS AND SIGHTS OF SECURITY: The skies were blue, the clouds puffy, the speakers long-winded and the military choppers loud. Dozens of police officers turned out for an awards ceremony at Liberty State Park, a sea of blue beside the Hudson. Both officers and civilians received awards for their work on 9/11 and after, and across the river Battery Park stood sentinel over the hole that was once the World Trade Center.

It's Fleet Week in NYC, so the day was punctuated by the constant buzzing of helicopters - military, NYPD, and EMS. A three-masted Coast Guard ship sailed gracefully by, and toward the end of the afternoon a small aircraft carrier with a helicopter lashed on top eased past the park. The Fuji blimp floated serenely above it all, and a fire boat spraying arcs of water just in front of Battery Park looked like a huge white spider resting on the river.

It was beautiful, and inspiring, and reminded me all over again that the WTC is gone, and we're at war. The Lincoln Tunnel closed a while today, and they were searching all cars endeavoring to cross into Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge. The Statue of Liberty stood with its gold flame against the blue sky, and more ships eased slowly into the bay. What a wonderful country. What a terrifying situation.






These two military helicopters, flying past Battery Park, would have been silhouetted against the WTC this time last year. Photo taken yesterday from Liberty State Park.

WORKING TO IMPROVE YOUR BLOGGING EXPERIENCE: I've spent the last little while setting up some free space I have online to be able to dump photos there, for posting here. Also, I'm in the process of moving the whole shebang over to another server, off Blogger, which will likely occur weekend after this coming. I'll be going Moveable Type, and the Wonderful and Amazing Dodd of Ipse Dixit is making it happen.

Now, if I can just figure out this ftp stuff....

IF YOU WERE HERE EARLIER TODAY, you may notice that while there were no posts actually up for today until almost 3 p.m., the two posts below this are time-stamped 7:30 a.m. and 11:13 a.m. That's because I posted, but Blogger said, "No space available" on that server. I was not happy. That is also part of the reason why there aren't more posts. I just did get back from the ceremony mentioned below, and I will have more to say about it (and a photo) in a little bit.

BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION: There's a terrorist threat here, folks, right here in the NYC metro area. They're inspecting all vehicles going into Manhattan (or so the radio says), which means they're slowing my commute. The Fuji Blimp is patroling the skies (don't I feel safe) and they're also keeping an eye on the Statue of Liberty just in case anyone gets ideas about taking down that monument. Given the tendency of suicidal Muslim extremists to choose either busy markets (Israel) or major monuments with lots of people around (WTC), I'm thinking that a large group of people congregating in, say, Liberty State Park overlooking the Statue, in, say, Jersey City where the 1993 WTC bombers lived and the 9/11 killers had connections, would be a prime target.

So guess where I'm going.

Yep.

To participate in a large gathering of police officers at Liberty State Park (I'm not police, just there on sufferance).

Of course, if I was really worried, I'd stay home. I'm not. But I'm a bit hinky, and trying to use humor to diffuse that slightly sick sense of wondering if I'm sitting in the open mouth of a lion.

Naturally, to follow up today's adventure, I'm going to fly out of - you guessed it - Newark International Airport tomorrow night for a long weekend in God's Country, aka Kentucky.

Let's all hope that I don't wind up in God's real Country, aka heaven.

(update: at least not, as Quana notes in comments, ahead of schedule!)

DID THEY OR DIDN'T THEY? I mentioned earlier that two Israelis were told to leave a NYC restaurant when the owner learned they were Israeli. The owner has since denied it, and one of the Israelis has reaffirmed her story. I don't know quite what to think; my instinct is to say that it would be a rather bizarre thing to make up. If you're interested, I suggest you check out the latest information:

Renatinha of Balagan blog has the letter from the restaurant owner denying the incident.

Israeli Guy still thinks it's true, and has comments from the journalist who wrote about it originally, and an email from one of the Israeli students, to support his belief.

Dawson has the same information but less surety.

REASON ENOUGH: Damian Penny watched the video of Dan*el Pe*rl's death. He tells us what he thinks. I agree with him. The excerpt in my earlier post said it best:

Real progress requires that we address root causes, which means putting bullets through the right foreheads

There are righteous deaths and there are unrighteous deaths. Sometimes we are called to bring righteous death to avenge unrighteous death, and this is one of those times.

I'm not a violent person; in fact, if you ask my friends to describe me, "sweet" will be one of the top characteristics. And I believe that meekness and gentleness are traits we should all strive for. But Jesus was sweet, and meek, and gentle, and beyond our ken righteous, yet he drove wicked people out of the temple. Sometimes you have to be aggressive and even ruthless in excising a cancer of hate that, if allowed to spread, will destroy everything.

This kind of viciousness, the kind of hate that could do what was done to Dan*el Pe*rl, cannot be convinced or persuaded or forced out of a person. It has metastasized. And to get rid of it, you kill it.

The sooner, the better.

A PLAINT TOO FAR: Dodd at Ipse Dixit uses the movie A Bridge To Far to illustrate how the intelligence about 9/11 didn't come together in time.

A NEW BLOGWORD AND A PLUG FOR ANOTHER: I received a very nice thank you from Tom Maguire, The MinuteMan, for linking him below. It's always a pleasure to hear from people I link, mainly because that means they came over to see my site and are writing because they liked it. In his email, Tom said he had received a lot of hits from the link (always a good thing to hear), which he doubted was quite on the level of an Instapundit link but nothing to sneeze at. He said,

I can't call it an "instalanche", since I've never had one. Let's say its a "biaslide".

So there you go! Two new blogwords, one coined by Mr. Maguire himself:

Instalanche: The "overwhelm everything in its path" mass of traffic lesser mortals receive when the Blogfather points in your direction. Often overwhelming to first-timers, but addictive. Soon a rating system in the blogosphere (tm Bill Quick) will develop around it. Originally put out there by Jim Treacher, who now posts comments about how it isn't catching on. (And who's site I can't link to because it's in flux.)

Biaslide: The "barely over the banks" wash of traffic that heads in the direction of those linked by moi.

Different sites will have their own link-flood terms as the rating system develops. Conversation at the cybercoffeeshop: "Hey! New here? I'm BigBlogDude, I'm rated at an average 6 Instalanches a month. Her? Oh, that's HotChickBlog. Yeah, she's a 3-a-month Instalancher. HarveyBlog, well, he got a couple of Biaslides recently, and scored a WelchGullyWasher last week, but no Instalanche yet. RitaBlog, she's collecting a bunch - she's had a LayneSlam, a couple of SpleenvilleSplashes and just yesterday a VolokhVaunting. She's an up and comer."

It's just a matter of time.

UPDATE: Hey, I just got linked by DailyPundit - it's a QuickRush!

A VICTORY FOR WEBCASTING:

On February 20, 2002, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel ("CARP") delivered its report recommending rates and terms for the statutory license for eligible nonsubscription services to perform sound recordings publicly by means of digital audio transmissions ("webcasting") under 17 U.S.C. §114 and to make ephemeral recordings of sound recordings for use of sound recordings under the statutory license set forth in 17 U.S.C. §112. (Read details on proceeding.)

On May 21, 2002, the Librarian of Congress, based upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, issued an Order rejecting the Panel’s determination proposing rates and terms for these licenses. In such cases, the law provides that the Librarian shall issue his final determination within 30 days of his decision to reject the Panel’s proposed rates and terms. The final determination is due on June 20, 2002.

Heads up via ScottAndrew.com.

UPDATE: Zem has a more knowledgeable perspective, there in the Comments:

It's not a victory for net radio yet. Note that it's not clear why the recommendation was rejected, or even that the new rates (due June 20) will be lower. There's some useful info in these comments at Politech, and this Reuters article (excerpts here in case the original expires).

GO RABBIT HUNTING.

OUCH! The Minute Man does NOT like the new Star Wars movie, but he's very funny in the process. He even has predictions for the next movie's main themes.

ABSOLUTELY APPROPRIATE RESPONSE: Moira Breen points us to an article by David Warren that ends:

In the rather shocking words of a British Afghan expert, a man I believe to be deeply humane: "Real progress requires that we address root causes, which means putting bullets through the right foreheads."

WINE AND WHOOPIE: Schamp also gives me the opportunity (not him personally, you understand, but by reason of an interesting link about the topic) to say, "Who are these men, and why are they universally feared by sheep?"

Do you think any of them said, "I only have eyes for ewe?"

(okay, okay, I'll stop.)

HE'S INSIDE MY HEAD: Craig Schamp says all those things I wish I'd said about pilots with guns.

Summary: Lock Fritz Hollings in the cockpit of an abandoned plane and give guns to the pilots of real moving ones.

HOW VERY FRIGHTENING: Nicholas Kristof is now embracing Christian evangelicals:

America's evangelicals have become the newest internationalists…

the new internationalists are saving lives in some of the most forgotten parts of the world…

…we should welcome this new constituency for foreign affairs in Middle America. Just look at AIDS funding: With bleeding-heart evangelicals like Mr. Graham pressing hard, Congressional Republicans are suddenly scrambling to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional money to fight AIDS in Africa. Even Jesse Helms is joining in, and that's pretty much proof of divine intervention.

Interesting viewpoint, but notable mostly because Kristof is excited that Christian groups are bringing their money to projects that he considers valuable. And he’s not much interested in Christians spreading their faith:

(…I have my doubts about the Middle East peace plan proffered by the Rev. Franklin Graham, Billy's son: Muslims and Jews alike should try "surrendering their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and having their hearts changed by the Holy Spirit.”)

but he’s fully on board with their money:

Evangelicals are among the most generous donors, for many tithe (evangelical cheapskates donate their 10 percent of incomes after tax). The 15 biggest Christian charities monitored by Ministrywatch .com collect more than $3 billion a year. Even small evangelical funds are booming; World Relief, with 9,000 employees, says its $40 million budget has doubled in four years.

while his arrogance toward and mocking of conservative religious people is intact:

The old religious right led by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, trying to battle Satan with school prayers and right-to-life amendments, is on the ropes…

Evangelicals are usually regarded by snooty, college-educated bicoastal elitists (not that any read this newspaper) as dangerous Neanderthals…A simple-minded moralistic streak often leads them toward sanctions that would hurt precisely the people they aim to help, in Sudan, Myanmar, North Korea and China.

Kristof treats evangelicals as some bizarre throwback cultural phenomenon that’s suddenly discovered a leftist agenda. It’s a quirky article (wherein he says “[e]vangelicals have their quirks), which doesn’t at all address the faith that underlies the actions behind the work these groups are doing. It’s all about taking advantage of their money. He admits to a lessening of his cynicism when he sees a Christian group staying behind to help in dangerous parts of the Philippines when other aid groups pull out, and he likes all that cash (they tithe! Wow!) but that’s about the extent of his admiration, and he can’t resist taking potshots along the way.

I find Mr. Kristof condescending and annoying, but then, maybe that’s just the simple-minded moralistic old religious right Neanderthal in me coming out.

TOFU BASKETBALLS? Well, not quite, but PETA's at it again and Tony Woodlief's pretty ticked about it. While I don't quite get the sports end of the fury, I do find PETA nauseating and the spinelessness of the NCAA distressing. I've been meaning to blog this anyway - my brother sent me the link last week with the words (and I quote): "Blog this crap!" So now I am, and as soon as I save this post I'm going to get some meat for breakfast. And maybe I'll have that steak for lunch.

You will understand, I'm sure, the total depth of my disgust for PETA when I tell you that my dad is a hunter, I grew up eating all sorts of wild game, and I've not to this day seen "Bambi" since my dad when we were growing up wouldn't let us see that "anti-hunter propaganda" movie. What's more, I love meat. And leather. And all those other lovely byproducts of the meat industry.

I say we all chip in and send PETA's corporate offices a leather armchair for its employees to watch the next NCAA basketball season in, and a year's membership for mail order meat.

THE BEAUTIFUL NEW INSTAPUNDIT! Glenn Reynolds has moved his site off Blogger, and it's been redesigned in Moveable Type. Feels kind of 1920s artsy; when I saw it first I thought, "He had Lileks do the redesign?" But no, he's succumbed to the siren call of Vodkapundit's webmistress, as has, apparently, Jim Treacher. It'll take some getting used to, but I like the new Instapundit. Nice graphic too.

While the VP webmistress hasn't come knocking on my door, I've had an offer to move into new cyberdigs complete with an MT makeover, and I'm considering. We shall see. I'm such an html inept that I'm not sure how that would work. It would, however, be cool to have more design input and options. We might even see about a "cut on the bias" graphic...

Oh the dreams, the plans, the wondrous joys of contemplation. Meanwhile, life calls in the form of a grant writing consultation before work this morning (in my Alter Ego as a Grant Writing Consultant) so posting will commence when that is over. I must say, I forget what excellent writers bloggers are, since everyone is it kind of moves to the background, but when I am faced with writing by the typical American I become frightened for our country. But never fear, my trusty red ink pen is busily wreaking its usual havoc.

A GREAT MIND, for media, that is. Media Minded has a couple of great reads.

First, check out his riff on headlines, starting with reference to a post on bias in headlines, but skidding pretty quickly into a funny nostalgia stream on headline jargon.

Second, MM encourages us to spend a little time with the Arcata Eye, famous for hilarious police blotter coverage, and its Anti-Eye, people with their panties in a wad and no sense for web design. They should be cited in the Eye's blotter for offensive use of typeface and web-designing while under the influence of fuchsia.

DOESN’T PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS: The Social Security Agency is handing out over a 100,000 social security numbers a year to non-citizens with no right to them, and many are being used to commit fraud. The SSA has been unconcerned:

For more than three years, Mr. Huse has recommended that the Social Security agency check the records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service before issuing Social Security numbers to noncitizens.

Before Sept. 11, the Social Security agency disagreed with this recommendation and did nothing to carry it out, fearing it would lead to unacceptable delays in issuing Social Security numbers to legitimate applicants.

Of course, as with everything else, 9/11 changed things:

The Social Security agency has since embraced the recommendation…

Well, not everything:

…but has had little success in getting the necessary help from the immigration agency, Mr. Huse said in an interview. The immigration agency issues many of the documents that immigrants use to show they are eligible for Social Security cards…

There might be hope:

Mr. Huse said the two agencies were still working out an arrangement to give Social Security officials access to electronic immigration files on noncitizens.

But the two agencies apparently are getting righteous at each other, never a good sign:

Social Security is also waiting for the immigration agency to incorporate data on certain immigrants authorized to work in the United States.

Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the immigration agency, said: "We are trying to work more closely with the Social Security Administration to reduce the use of fraudulent documents. It's one of our top priorities."

Ahhh… the old “we’re waiting on them to get their act together” while the other agency says it’s “a top priority” (i.e. in our own good time or when hell freezes over, whichever is slower, most likely the former). It looks like agency pouting, where each is blaming the other and neither is making a solid effort to fix the problem. And it’s not as if they don’t know the true seriousness:

…"The tragedies of Sept. 11 demonstrate that the misuse of Social Security numbers and identity theft are `breeder' offenses with the ability to facilitate crimes beyond our imagination," Mr. Huse said in his report.

We have to cut off access to documentation that gives criminals, especially terrorists, the legitimacy to operate in the open setting up bank accounts and such. This kind of “I can’t do MY job because they won’t do theirs!” whining is ridiculous. Someone (Bush?) needs to say, “You will play together. Here is your common goal. This will happen or there will be trouble. Soon.”

Of course I know the problem is bureaucracy and the federal civil service monolith. But the Congress and the President, together, should be able to make any two federal agencies play nice together. If the federal agencies balk and play the civil service stub-up instead, then the President can change who’s in charge. If that doesn’t work, Congress can change civil service to make workers truly accountable. If Congress won’t, then we change Congress. Folks, this isn’t making a car in Detroit or sewing a sleeve on a dress in Iowa. This is whether a terrorist gets legal documentation to set up an bank account so he can kill Americans on his own timetable, at his leisure, in whatever manner he chooses.

The current coverage of the 1990s intelligence goofs that allowed Al Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks is evidence of what happens when federal agencies don’t play well together. “We the People” means ultimately it’s up to us to fix it. I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t matter right now, this minute, “who knew what when”. The time for that finger-pointing is gone because all it does is detract from the “who’s going to fix it now”. The only possible way that it matters is as an indicator of what needs fixing. I’ve seen several calls for a non-partisan “Challenger” like investigation. I say, fine, but only if it doesn’t have 200 people involved and doesn’t take two years to do, as often happens with such groups.

Stop looking backward – look forward. Fix it. Make Social Security and INS play nice. Make the federal law enforcement agencies play nice. And if they don’t, kick butt, take names, send people home and get people in there who DO play nice. I’m sick of this. We’re all sick of this.

We're dying while the government fiddles around.

HARLEY HEARSE: You gotta see it to believe it.

UPDATE: Link updated courtesy of Michael Levy. (Thanks!)

AND YOU THOUGHT YOUR DRIVE WAS BAD: Stefan Sharkansky chronicles his baby son's first trip to Lake Tahoe; the ride home through snow is an exercise in futility and humor. At least, I thought it was funny. I don't think Stefan was amused, at the time. Long, but worth it.

DANIEL PEARL'S BODY CONFIRMED FOUND.

Thanks to DailyPundit for the link.

LAW, RELIGION AND MEDIA: Friday night the season finale of Law & Order SVU used as its main story line the current abusive Catholic priest imbroglio. In the episode, several young boys are abused while in Catholic school, and years later one of them commits a murder that leads to the revelation of the abuse. As the story unfolds, we follow a priest at first accused of the abuse, then later revealed to have been the one to whom the real abuser confessed his sin. Near the end, a Catholic police officer forces a decision on the priest: break the confessional seal in the hopes of preventing future abuse, or preserving his Catholic vows and in so doing protecting a child molester. We see the priest in tears, then we see him in a garden with the actual molester - a bishop in full robes. The officer accuses the bishop, who in essence admits his guilt by turning to the priest with his own accusation. He says (paraphrased), “You broke your seal. Do you know you could lose your soul?”

The priest replies, “I think I just saved it.”

I was very taken aback (although not surprised) at this conclusion. It reflects the mentality of the writers and producers, and typically the secular world as a whole: When religion and the secular view of human safety/health/happiness conflict, the human side always wins. While on the face of it, this makes sense, it spells danger for religionists and is something we need to address.

Yesterday a Vatican City appeals court judge, Jesuit priest Gianfranco Ghirlanda, released an opinion which states, in partial summary, that a bishop reassigning a priest accused of abuse does not have to inform the new parish of the priest’s abusive history; that if additional abuse occurs, the assigning bishop bears neither moral nor legal responsibility for that; and that even requiring the abusive priest to undergo psychological evaluation is violating his right to privacy. That sounds pretty bad from a secular standpoint, and seems to support the “righteousness” of the Law & Order priest’s decision.

In a vastly different situation, but also one involving an application of religious law in a way Westerners – and some Muslims – strongly denounce, a woman in Pakistan has been convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning after admitting that she was raped by her brother-in-law. According to her, she was raped repeatedly over time until she became pregnant, which, since her husband was in prison, was proof of illicit sexual activity. Her accusation against her brother-in-law was taken as a confession of her guilt; he, on the other hand, was not even charged because four Muslim men of good standing (and all those conditions must inhere) must witness a rape for a Muslim man to be charged. The force behind it is Sharia, the Muslim religious and civil law, and the part dealing specifically with extramarital sex, Hudood. Efforts are underway to moderate or set aside Hudood, by progressives in the region.

Why juxtapose these two obviously unrelated situations? Because I don’t think they are unrelated, philosophically, and a misunderstanding of the connection between the two is where the danger for religionists lies.

Internationally, laws range from those based fully on religious teaching – Sharia, or its cousins – to the fully secular. The United States has something of a mixture; while its laws are not specifically tied to a particular church, many of its approaches are based on the Judeo-Christian tradition and the common law that evolved in societies with that tradition. As we move along the continuum from religious-as-civil mix to purely secular, the teachings of particular groups are increasingly removed from the codified law. The edicts of the religions in those more secular countries are not erased from society, but rather the adherents obey both religious and civil laws.

The problem comes when the two laws come into conflict. In our society, we have a tendency to allow religious beliefs to trump secular law when the impact could be seen as not detrimental to society as a whole – for instance, allowing exemptions to the military draft to those who conscientiously object for religious (and other) reasons, or not forcing an adult of good mind to get medical attention if he or she feels it is against his or her beliefs. However, our society has already decided that there are instances where social good trumps religious beliefs – as in the case of a child refused medical care by parents who believe medical treatment is religiously condemned. Courts have taken children away from parents in those situations, and ordered treatment. But other than cases where immediate harm is not just possible but likely, US society as a whole leaves churches alone in their religious practices. It’s one of our foundational Constitutional rights.

But the fight for the law of our country has become more starkly an issue of religion in the past few years, where those with what are termed “fundamentalist” beliefs pilloried when they even seek office (for example, John Ashcroft). And even before 9/11, the term “Taliban” began to be used to describe any conservatives who referred to their religious beliefs in discussing law or its enforcement. (I use conservative because I’ve yet to see Jimmy Carter or Joe Lieberman referred to as “Taliban”.) And what is the law the Taliban sought to impose? Sharia. While it is at present mostly hyperbole, the connection between Islamic Sharia and Christianity has been made and as with all demonizations (see “racist” and “homophobic” as applied to anyone who objects to affirmative action measures) it is likely to gain more purchase when it shows itself to have political impact.

But what does this have to do with the current Catholic church crisis?

Think back to the Law & Order example. I’ve read several posts discussing the priest’s seal, and why it is reasonable that they cannot be made to break it. The Law & Order writers/producers just expressed their view that righteousness in this case is to break a vow of silence made to God. Next, take a look at the articles about Ghirlanda’s edict – the headlines themselves are inflammatory. That’s the stark interpretation of the secular media, and it is universally condemning, implicitly if not explicitly. But, when viewed through the lens of someone with close knowledge of Catholic history and law – a journalist for the Catholic News Service – Ghirlanda’s analysis makes pretty good sense, within the confines of the Catholic canon, and provides much more protection for the faithful than a reading of the secular media would suggest.

On the face of it – as presented by the secular media – the edicts from the Vatican in the form of this article by Ghirlanda seem to go against US law and certainly cross the line between acceptable and unacceptable religious deviation from law as it has been practically applied in the US. In essence, the media portray this as saying the church is protecting its priests and its reputation first, and the children can lump it because church canon trumps secular law in any instance where the two collide. That’s not really the truth of Ghirlanda’s article, but in my experience few journalists writing on religious issues have a sense for the religious nuance that is revealed in the Catholic News article. I think it is only the vastness of the Catholic reach and the concern for offense to powerful people that has prevented the media so far from comparing it to Sharia. If a split becomes more evident between conservative and progressive elements in the US Catholic church, then I anticipate that comparison will soon follow for those who take a more conservative stance.

I struggle to separate my own religious viewpoint from this analysis of the broader impact of the Catholic church’s response to their crisis. I’m not Catholic, and I have major theological differences with Catholic teachings. But, while I disagree with the theology, I can and do support the Catholic church’s legal right to practice their faith as they see fit. The need I see now is for another dialogue in this society about the lines we draw around the practice of faith, and an acknowledgement from the Catholic church that the way it handles this crisis can damage every faith practiced in the US if it does address just its internal sensibilities and not the broader legal implications of its decisions.

The Catholic church is the largest centrally controlled religion in the word, to my knowledge – other faiths may have more adherents, but they are not bound so tightly to a central governing body as the Catholic church is to the Vatican. (In fact, concern about ties to the Vatican were a feature in JFK’s presidential race, couched in a manner similar to the coverage of John Ashcroft during his confirmation and after.) Thus, the Catholic church has the unenviable task of making decisions that meet the needs of its adherents in a free country such as the United States while not creating problems in other countries with different contexts. In addition, there is a desire to stay with the tradition of the church, to adhere closely to the canon when addressing problems, which is what the article by Ghirlanda is meant to do. In the response so far, there is a tone that says, we were here before you, we speak for God, this is the way it has to be. There is a certain immutability about it, almost a disdain for the rule of law in the United States as it relates to the canon of the church.

But it seems to me that this “holding to the canon” is not all that is going on in the highest levels of decision-making for the church. There are also political realities within the church hierarchy itself, as well as financial considerations (one part of Ghirlanda’s article seems to address the concern of false claims against the church, a valid issue, but in protecting against false claims there appears to be shorter shrift than necessary given to the possibility of genuine claims). The church has vast holdings, which could be jeopardized by widespread revelation of genuine sexual abuse. The same revelations would also diminish donations and threaten the intense bond between the faithful and the leadership. So the church’s approach to this cannot be seen as wholly without earthly considerations. The question is, where do the spiritual concerns end and the earthly concerns take precedence?

This is an important question, because what the Catholic church does will either strengthen or weaken the freedom of religion in the United States. I don’t think it will remain the same, regardless of the church’s decision. If the church chooses to take a hard line that is generally perceived (among the non-Catholics, and likely amongst some Catholics as well) as a move that leaves children at risk for the purpose of preserving the Catholic hierarchy and holdings, there will be a backlash, a further splitting between the religious and the non-religious, a hardening of intolerance already gaining greater voice. If, conversely, the Catholic church not only institutes measures to actively root out abusers within its priestly ranks but also conducts a public relations campaign saying “There was wrong, we’re fixing it, and this is what it looks like” that is understandable to those for whom religion is a foreign language, then it will strengthen the understanding that because religions will police themselves as moral entities, it is not necessary for the government to intervene to protect the populace from the religionists.

I see the impact of a hard-line Catholic response being a shift toward imposing secular law in instances where it conflicts with religious beliefs. For example, the congregation where I attend does not have women ministers as a matter of doctrine. That, of course, violates anti-discrimination laws, but since it is a question of religious practice the laws do not apply. I can foresee a time when a woman wanting to preach at a church like mine sues the leaders of the congregation for not giving her equal consideration, and is allowed civil judgment against it. Likewise, tax exempt status could be threatened for such activities that violate secular law.

The freedom of religion in this country is at a crossroad; our foot is already turned toward the more secular path. The Catholic church will choose whether we go more quickly and decisively in that direction. The wrong choice will damage not only the Catholic faith, but all others, eventually. The ones sitting in judgment on whether the choice is the right one are the same people who see everything right with a priest breaking his vow to God. If the Catholic church wants to preserve that vow, then it must police itself convincingly, in a way that puts righteousness and protection of innocence first - not money, or image, or organizational politics. And it must not allow any comparisons to the abusive nature of Sharia to be in any way valid, as would be the case if it sets up its canon as civil as well as religious law by not affording children the protections US law provides, and resisting the efforts of the US government to step in to provide them. It is always wrong to allow abuse to hide behind the name of God, whether it is Catholicism or Islam that does it.

This country stands to lose a part of its soul. The Catholic church can help save it - or lose it.